Image source, AFP via Getty ImagesImage caption, File photo from 2021 of a beach in northern France used by migrants to attempt the Channel crossing to England
Six people traffickers have been found guilty in France of causing the deaths of 31 migrants in the worst ever small-boat accident in the Channel.
At the end of a four-week trial in Paris, the six were convicted of "involuntary homicide" and given prison terms of between six and 10 years.
Seven others were given lesser sentences of up to four years, and one person was found not guilty.
The boat went down early in the morning on 24 November 2021 after sending distress calls to French and British coastguards. The dead, including a child of seven, were mainly Iraqi Kurds but also included Afghans, Egyptians and Iranian Kurds. Only two men survived.
The charge sheet said the migrants had been put to sea from the French coast in a boat "that was of poor quality, uncertified, unsuitable for navigation at sea, overloaded, and without correct life jackets".
The trial established that the guilty men were members of two separate networks – one of which was Iraqi Kurd, the other Afghan – that co-operated to organise the cross-channel journey and bring migrants to the meeting point.
Unusually the court was attended at the start by several family members, who came to France from Iraqi Kurdistan and gave moving testimony about how the victims came to be on board the boat.
Image caption, Some of the victims (from left): Mohammed Hussein Mohammedie, Mhabad Ahmad Ali, Bilind Shakir Baker, Shakar Ali Pirot, Bryar Hamad Abdulrahman, and Hasti Rizghar Hussein
Speaking after the verdict, their lawyer Matthieu Chirez said the decision "comes as a relief for all the civil plaintiffs because it confirms the penal responsibility of the traffickers". He said the trial had "humanised the families of victims".
One family member, Zana Marmand Muhammed, told the court how his younger brother Twana had "wanted to go to England to find a job and because the geopolitical situation with us is dangerous. No-one in the family wanted him to leave, but we could not dissuade him."
Nabi Mustafa Mina, the father of Zanyar who was 19 when he died, told of how he tried to dissuade his son from leaving.
"I said I would help him to get married, I would give him my house, I would divide my salary in two. But no, he said he wanted a better life, that he would get by somehow. I ran out of arguments," he said.
The family-members explained how they had paid a deposit at a bank in Iraqi Kurdistan and then followed their loved ones' progress through Turkey, Italy and then France. In one of the last messages from Twana, he posted a picture of himself at the Eiffel Tower.
The court also heard a statement from one of the two survivors, Issa Omar, read out by his lawyer. Omar said that he "would have liked to appear before the judge but I do not have the strength. Since the wreck I have the impression that part of me disappeared beneath the waves."
His lawyer Matthieu Chirez said that Omar had "clung to floating bodies, to a life-jacket. He survived by keeping his eyes open so as not to go to sleep, and swimming to keep his heart beating".
Police investigating the disaster used phone tracking to identify members of the two networks.
The lesser figures were accused of sheltering migrants, transporting them across France to the so-called "jungle" camp outside Calais, and helping on the night of the departure.
The alleged leader of the Iraqi Kurd network – named as Bashdar – was not a defendant in the trial. He is in custody in Iraq. His close aide – Harem Ahmed Abawaker – was given eight years in prison.
The biggest sentence, of 10 years, went to Obaidullah Maroofkhel, who ran the Afghan network. He was tried in his absence along with one other defendant.
Most of the 14 were Afghans or Iraqi Kurds. All but one of the defendants appeared in the trial as free men, so following the verdict the court issued six arrest warrants.
A separate police investigation is under way into seven members of the French armed forces for allegedly failing to come to the help of the migrants on the night of the disaster.
The seven were at the regional sea rescue centre or on board a navy ship, and are alleged to have ignored distress calls from the boat. A decision on whether to recommend them for trial will be taken in the coming months.
The trial ended as France and the UK announced it was ending the so-called one-in one-out scheme under which the British government sent back irregular cross-Channel migrants to France, and in return accepted individuals with a likely prospect of being granted asylum.
France had already signalled that the year-long programme, which has seen a little more than 1,000 migrants switch country, was not producing expected results in breaking the traffickers' business model.
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