Britain has sentenced the suspect in the case of the 39 Vietnamese bodies found in a container.

A British court sentenced Gormley to seven years in prison, the last suspect in the case involving the deaths of 39 Vietnamese people found in a container in the UK in 2019.

Caolan Gormley, 26, owner of the transport company Haulage, "was tempted and greedy" when he engaged in the "extremely lucrative activity" of smuggling immigrants, Judge Richard Marks of the Old Bailey High Court in London said on November 30. The court convicted Gormley of aiding illegal immigration and sentenced him to seven years in prison.

Gormley, from Tyrone, Northern Ireland, is the 11th suspect to be sentenced by the UK in connection with the deaths of 39 Vietnamese people found in a container in the country on October 23, 2019. The two ringleaders, Gheorghe Nica, a Romanian, and Ronan Hughes, also from Northern Ireland, were sentenced in 2021 to 27 and 20 years in prison, respectively.

According to police, Gormley was involved in three attempts to smuggle illegal immigrants into the UK on October 11, 14 and 18, 2019, but there was no evidence to suggest he was directly involved in the incident on October 23 of the same year.

Prosecutors said Gormley had known Hughes for a long time. When Hughes and Nica wanted to find drivers "willing and able" to transport immigrants from Europe to the UK by truck, Gormley introduced them to Christopher Kennedy. Kennedy was prosecuted and sentenced to seven years in prison in March 2022.

Gormley stated that he was "shocked" and "completely disbelieving" when he learned that someone had died. Gormley thought he was only involved in smuggling alcohol into England.

Suspect Caolan Gormley. Photo: Essex Police

The bodies of 39 Vietnamese nationals were discovered in a container truck at the Waterglade industrial park in Essex on the morning of October 23, 2019. Investigations revealed that they were loaded onto the truck in northern France and paid human traffickers 20,000 euros (over $23,000 USD) to cross the border from France to England.

The container carrying them was transported by ferry from the port of Zeebrugge in Belgium to the port of Purfleet, England, overnight. The victims subsequently died from lack of oxygen and overheating in the confined space.

Prosecutions also took place in France and Belgium. In November, a French court sentenced 18 defendants involved, with the maximum sentence being 10 years in prison. A Belgian court sentenced 18 people, including a Vietnamese man who received a 15-year sentence for leading a local human trafficking ring.

By Như Tâm (According to AFP, BBC )

Source: https://vnexpress.net/anh-tuyen-an-nghi-pham-vu-39-thi-the-nguoi-viet-trong-container-4683366.html