LONDON: A UK court on Monday remanded in custody a truck driver over the deaths of 39 Asian migrants he had been smuggling, in a case that has horrified Britain and sparked a search for their country of origin.
Maurice Robinson, a 25-year-old from Northern Ireland known as Mo, was charged Saturday with 39 counts of manslaughter, money laundering and conspiracy to assist unlawful immigration.
As bereaved families in Vietnam prayed for their missing sons and daughters, some of whose identies emerged online, Robinson made no statement in a brief video appearance at a court in Chelmsford, northeast of London.
He has been scheduled to enter a plea at London’s Old Bailey court on November 25.
The eight women and 31 men found Wednesday in a refrigerated container in Essex, southeast England, were originally identified as Chinese.
But several Vietnamese families have come forward since, saying they feared their relatives were among the dead, and UK authorities have walked back their original statement.
The grim case has again cast light on the extreme dangers facing illegal migrants seeking better lives in Europe, and reopened debates across Britain about ways to prevent such tragedies from happening again.
Britain is now conducting its largest murder investigation since the July 7, 2005 London suicide bombings that killed 52 people.
Officials started collecting DNA samples from families in Nghe An and Ha Tinh, impoverished provinces in central Vietnam where most of the suspected victims came from.
On Monday, Vietnam said Britain had sent documents to help with the complicated task of identifying the bodies, many of whom were believed to be carrying falsified passports.
“The UK side has sent four sets of dossiers related to the Essex lorry deaths... for verification coordination,” Vietnam’s Deputy Foreign Minister Bui Thanh Son said.
Vietnam’s foreign ministry is gathering information on the suspected victims, the report said, after hair and blood samples were collected from several families.
UK authorities arrested another man wanted in the case on Saturday in Dublin, while three others detained earlier have been released on bail.
The man arrested Saturday is also believed to be in his 20s and from Northern Ireland, although no details about his identity have been released.
UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson, who campaigned for stronger borders while pushing Britain to leave the EU in the 2016 referendum, signed a book of condolence Monday and laid flowers in Grays, east of London, where the truck was found.
Interior minister Priti Patel was also due to answer questions about the case in parliament.
The tragedy has plunged communities in central Vietnam into mourning as families desperately wait for news from their missing relatives.
Vietnamese media reported that as many as 24 of the victims could be Vietnamese although officials have not confirmed the number.
Central Vietnam has long been a source of illegal migration to Britain for people seeking better lives.
Vietnamese migrants often work illegally in nail bars or cannabis farms, heavily indebted and vulnerable to exploitations.
Truck driver remanded at UK court over 39 dead migrants
Truck driver remanded at UK court over 39 dead migrants
- Maurice Robinson was charged Saturday with 39 counts of manslaughter, money laundering and conspiracy
- Several Vietnamese families have come forward since, saying they feared their relatives were among the dead
Trump says will ‘de-escalate’ in Minneapolis after shooting backlash
- The turmoil could even result in a fresh US government shutdown, with Democrats threatening to block approval of routine spending bills up for votes in the Senate later this week
MINNEAPOLIS, United States: US President Donald Trump said Tuesday he would “de-escalate a little bit” in Minneapolis after the fatal shootings of two civilians fueled a storm of criticism over his signature immigration crackdown.
Trump’s “border czar” Tom Homan met with officials in the city as the Republican attempted damage control after the killing by immigration agents of 37-year-old nurse Alex Pretti on Saturday.
The president also admitted that Gregory Bovino, a hard-line Border Patrol commander who is now expected to leave Minneapolis, was “a pretty out-there kind of a guy” whose presence may not have helped the situation.
“We’re going to de-escalate a little bit,” Trump told Fox News after days of tensions following the shooting of Pretti, while adding that it was not a “pullback.”
Trump said that Homan — the top US border security official, who brings a less confrontational communication style — met with Minnesota Governor Tim Walz and Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey Tuesday.
The US president told reporters that he rejected the “assassin” label used by a top aide to describe protester Pretti. “I want a very honorable and honest investigation,” he said.
Yet Trump did not hold back from criticizing Pretti for carrying a licensed firearm that was taken off him before he was shot.
“I don’t like that he had a gun, I don’t like that he had two fully loaded magazines,” the president said.
‘Pretty out there’
Mayor Frey said in a statement after meeting Homan that he discussed the “serious negative impacts this operation has had on Minneapolis,” and that the city “will not enforce federal immigration laws.”
Former Democratic vice presidential candidate Walz said he called for “impartial investigations” into shootings by federal agents in the city as well as a “significant reduction” in federal forces in the state.
Pretti’s death has sparked outrage nationwide.
Democratic former president Joe Biden on Tuesday said the situation “betrays our most basic values as Americans.” Ex-presidents Bill Clinton and Barack Obama have also spoken out.
Pretti, shot multiple times after being knocked to the ground, was the second US citizen killed by immigration officers in Minneapolis this month, turning the city into ground zero of national tensions over Trump’s mass deportation policies.
Protester Renee Good, a mother of three, was shot by an agent at point blank range in her car on January 7.
The killings capped months of escalating violence in which masked, unidentified, and heavily armed Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and Border Patrol agents have grabbed people suspected of violating immigration laws off the streets.
Despite multiple videos showing that Pretti posed no threat, top officials initially claimed he had been intending to kill federal agents.
Trump backed his under-fire Homeland Security chief Kristi Noem, who described Pretti as a “domestic terrorist,” saying she would not step down and was doing a “very good job.”
But he was less supportive of Bovino, a Border Patrol official famed for reveling in aggressive, televised immigration crackdowns who had also played up the narrative that Pretti had posed a threat.
“Bovino’s very good, but he’s a pretty out there kind of a guy. And in some cases, that’s good, maybe it wasn’t good here,” Trump told Fox.
‘Sickened’
Concern over the violence and the attempt to blame Pretti for his death quickly spread to Washington.
Republican Senator Rand Paul said Tuesday that agents involved in the shooting should be put on administrative leave, later adding that the heads of ICE, Border Patrol and Citizenship and Immigration Services would testify before the Congress next month.
Centrist Democratic Senator John Fetterman said “grossly incompetent” Noem should be fired.
The turmoil could even result in a fresh US government shutdown, with Democrats threatening to block approval of routine spending bills up for votes in the Senate later this week.
“The whole community is just sickened by all this,” said 68-year-old retiree Stephen McLaughlin in Minneapolis. “The aim of the government is to terrorize citizens, it’s really frightening.”
