A 29-year-old man must serve 40 months in prison for being involved in human smuggling in an industrial area in Eindhoven in February last year. The court in Den Bosch ruled that on Tuesday.
The human smuggling was discovered by an alert security guard. He saw how six persons entered a truck trailer at night and two men locked the trailer. One of those two men could be apprehended on Beatrixkade, after he was first tased by the police.
Inside the trailer were 11 people of Iraqi or Vietnamese nationality. Five of them were minors, the oldest was 41. The intention was to transport them to England via The Netherlands. According to the court, the accused, a man with no fixed place of residence, was thereby guilty of human smuggling.
And that is taken highly. This thwarts the fight against illegal residence and illegal entry into the Netherlands and other countries. It also contributes to the maintenance of an illegal circuit, according to the court. And this can easily lead to forms of exploitation and abuse of vulnerable people.
Previously convicted
The accused did not consider the harmful consequences: he only did it for the money. During the investigation and trial, he had a very implausible explanation in the eyes of the judge and did not take responsibility in any way.
Moreover, he was found to be hard-headed. The convicted man had already been punished once for something similar. That conviction, and the suspended sentence hanging over his head, should have been a signal to him. Yet he was guilty of human trafficking again. The court charged him heavily for that.
The public prosecutor had demanded 55 months in prison and a €22,000 fine. The Iraqi wanted to make a lot of money from it. The court wanted to believe this, but the smugglers actually stated that they had not paid anything yet. And so the Iraqi escaped a fine on top of the prison sentence.
Source: Studio040
Translated by: Bob