7 Convicted In Dutch Immigrant Truck Deaths
By Anthony Deutsch
Originally published by The Associated Press, May 11, 2001
ROTTERDAM, Netherlands (AP) — A Dutch court Friday convicted seven men in the deaths of 58 Chinese illegal immigrants who suffocated in a cargo truck found in England last June—a tragedy that focused international attention on the dangers of immigrant smuggling.
The defendants received prison sentences of up to nine years. They were acquitted of the more serious charge of manslaughter, and two others were acquitted of all charges.
They have 14 days to appeal.
The dead—54 men and four women—had paid tens of thousands of dollars each for the chance to begin a new life in the West. Only two migrants survived. The case exposed a murky underworld of smuggling gangs, known as "snakeheads," who profit from immigrants' hopes for new lives in the West.
The two leading defendants were found guilty of running an international human trafficking ring that charged tens of thousands of dollars per person to smuggle them to England.
Gursel Ozcan, a Turkish national, and Haci Demir, a Dutch resident of Turkish origin, received nine year sentences and were fined $38,000 each.
The other five received sentences ranging from 30 months to seven years for assisting the operations.
Dutchman Perry Wacker, the driver of the truck found in Dover, England, was sentenced to 14 years imprisonment in an English court last month. Jan Boone, Demir's lawyer, said he would appeal. The prosecution declined all comment.
Prosecutors had demanded sentences of up to 20 years against the men, who had been charged with manslaughter, assisted manslaughter, forgery and membership in a criminal organization.
The seven were found guilty of organizing three smuggling operations for illegal immigrants starting in December 1999 and ending with the discovery of the bodies of the 58 Chinese.
The men provided shelter for the immigrants in the Netherlands, arranged transportation and loaded the Chinese passengers onto the truck. They filled the opening of the cargo container with crates of tomatoes and sent them on their perilous journey across the English Channel.
Presiding Judge Jos Silvis said the men loaded the Chinese onto the truck knowing they would have to wait for hours in the heat without proper ventilation.
"They didn't plan their deaths," but could have avoided them, Silvis said.
Prosecutors and defense attorneys rested their case two weeks ago after only a few days of public hearings during which only four witnesses were called to the stand.
The nine defense lawyers spent several days questioning investigators about their methods of inquiry in an effort to shift blame from their clients.
The attorneys suggested that police knew about the doomed June 18 transport and let it through to gain hard evidence against the smugglers.
The court rejected the claims, saying "there was no question whether the police knew about the June shipment."
Prosecutors and Justice Ministry officials said the gang's leader had been under surveillance for months before the Dover shipment. They admitted letting through shipments of drugs to bolster other investigations.
But they repeatedly denied claims they had allowed the Chinese migrants to pass through the Netherlands.
Much of the witness testimony and evidence from the Wacker trial was submitted to the court here. Two Chinese survivors who testified in the Dover trial were not asked to retell the horrors of the journey.
During closing arguments, prosecutor Johan Klunder said the victims had been "held in conditions unfit for animals" and that the suspects knew there was a risk of killing the passengers who were packed tightly in the back of a nearly airtight refrigeration compartment.
Customs officials in Dover found the 58 victims and two survivors in the back of the shipping container during a routine check.
Prosecutors described Ozcan, the alleged ring leader, as an "immoral profiteer of human desperation" and demanded that he be sentenced to 20 years imprisonment and pay a fine $80,000.
A sentence of 18 years and a $60,000 was asked of Ozcan's alleged right-hand man, Demir.
