A week of trial before the Lille court, which judges until Friday, June 20, nine men accused of being migrant smugglers to England, will undoubtedly not allow you to know what exactly happened on the night of December 13 to 14, 2022. It was freezing cold but the Northern Sea had to be calm, because at least seven boats took the direction of Kent, south-east of London. One of them has never arrived. She sank a few kilometers from the English coast.
The survivors told the panic movement of the fifty exiles trapped in the tire. Their boat had taken the water and they feared that English fishermen, from which they had approached, continue their journey without helping them. The British survey will point to the danger of their ship, patched with glue, with a plywood to hold the engine, and a background that was little better.
What we know, the president of the court summed it soberly: “Four lifeless bodies were found. And four people are missing. Only one of the bodies could be identified: Sajed Ahmad Fayed. We just know that he came from Afghanistan. »» The missing? One was nicknamed “Million”, the other had two email addresses, from the third, we only know the phone number. And the fourth? The president attacks before the defendants: “I have nothing to say. »»
A complaint against the maritime prefect
So much for the human assessment. The Lille magistrates in charge of this file, nourished by a meticulous police investigation carried out from the phones of the survivors, will have to determine the responsibilities of the defendants (of Afghan, Syrian and Iraqi nationality), whose lines of defense have already been understood: denying any responsibility or trying to convince that they are only involved to have wanted to finance their future crossing, or even they have acted under the constraint.
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Source: Lemonde