LONDON: A UK court jailed a French couple Friday for smuggling Vietnamese migrants including children into the country inside specially adapted sofas, the interior ministry said.
Hove Crown Court in southern England sentenced Junior Toussaint and Andrene Paul, both from near Paris, to four years and six months, and five years and five months respectively, the ministry said.
The pair, who had worked together as delivery drivers in France, pleaded guilty to assisting unlawful migration to the UK.
Traveling from Dieppe in northern France to Newhaven Port on the southern English coast in April earlier this year, they used furniture to hide a Vietnamese woman and three children in the back of a hire van.
Officers from the UK’s Border Force became suspicious when they searched the van and saw movement from inside the adapted sofas, which were buried underneath a mattress and other furniture.
Two migrants were hidden inside the sofa while others were hidden among other fixtures including a chest of drawers.
The defendants told officials they had no knowledge of the migrants’ presence in their van and had been driving it to help with furniture removal in London.
But fingerprint checks carried out by Border Force later proved Toussaint’s involvement in the smuggling attempt, according to the interior ministry.
Paul, who had also initially denied her involvement, was found to have made a series of suspicious visits to the UK earlier in the year, it added.
The ministry said she pleaded guilty when video evidence of her previous activity was shown in court.
“Criminals are going to increasingly extreme lengths to smuggle people across the UK border for profit due to our efforts to clamp down on them,” Chris Foster, of the ministry’s criminal and financial investigations section, said.
“This sentence today reflects the severity of their crimes,” he added in a statement.
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French couple jailed in UK for smuggling migrants inside furniture
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French couple jailed in UK for smuggling migrants inside furniture
- Hove Crown Court in southern England sentenced Junior Toussaint and Andrene Paul, both from near Paris, to four years and six months, and five years and five months respectively
- The pair, who had worked together as delivery drivers in France, pleaded guilty to assisting unlawful migration to the UK
US judge orders curbs on immigration agents’ tactics toward Minnesota protesters
- Arrests and tear-gassing of peaceful demonstrators prohibited
- Observers also protected from arrests, crowd-control munitions
MINNEAPOLIS: A federal judge in Minnesota on Friday ordered that US immigration agents deployed en masse to Minneapolis be restricted in some of the tactics they have taken against peaceful demonstrators and observers, including arrests and tear-gassing.
Handing a victory to local activists in Minnesota’s most populous city, US District Judge Kate Menendez issued an injunction barring federal agents from retaliating against individuals engaged in non-violent, unobstructive protest activity.
The ruling was in response to a lawsuit filed against the US Department of Homeland Security and other federal agencies on December 17, three weeks before an immigration agent fatally shot Renee Good, a 37-year-old woman in Minneapolis, spawning waves of protests and putting the city on edge.
The court case was brought on behalf of six protesters and observers who claimed their constitutional rights had been infringed by the actions of ICE agents.
The 83-page order explicitly prohibits federal officers from detaining people who are peacefully protesting or merely observing the officers, unless there is reasonable suspicion that they are interfering with law enforcement or have committed a crime.
Federal agents also are banned from using pepper spray, tear gas or other crowd-control munitions against peaceful demonstrators or bystanders observing and recording the immigration enforcement operations, the judge ruled.
Menendez wrote that the government, in defending the street tactics of its immigration officers, had failed to “explain why it is necessary for them to arrest and use force against peaceful observers.”
Stopping or detaining drivers and passengers in vehicles when there is no reason to believe they are forcibly obstructing or interfering with federal agents is likewise prohibited, according to the court order.
Order comes amid heightened tensions
“There may be ample suspicion to stop cars, and even arrest drivers, engaged in dangerous conduct while following immigration enforcement officers, but that does not justify stops of cars not breaking the law,” Menendez wrote.
The DHS did not immediately respond to a Reuters request for comment.
The ruling comes nearly two weeks after the Trump administration announced it was sending 2,000 immigration agents to the Minneapolis area, bolstering an earlier deployment in what the DHS called its largest such operation in history.
The surge in heavily armed officers from the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency and Border Patrol has since grown to nearly 3,000, dwarfing the ranks of local police officers in the Twin Cities metropolitan area of Minneapolis and St. Paul.
Tensions over the deployment have mounted considerably since an ICE agent fatally shot Good, a mother of three, behind the wheel of her car on January 7.
At the time, Good was taking part in one of numerous neighborhood patrols organized by local activists to track and monitor ICE activities.
Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, one of the federal officials named in the lawsuit, said after the shooting that Good had been “stalking and impeding” ICE agents all day and had committed an act of “domestic terrorism” by trying to run over federal officers.
Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey and local activists disputed Noem’s account, saying Good posed no physical threat to ICE agents. They pointed to video clips of the incident they said showed that Good was trying to drive her car away from officers and that the use of lethal force against her was unjustified.
Frey and Minnesota Governor Tim Walz have repeatedly demanded that the Trump administration withdraw the immigration agents, asserting that the operation is being conducted in a reckless manner endangering the public.
While largely siding with the plaintiffs in the case, the judge did not grant all their requests, declining to ban the federal government from actions not specifically taken against those who filed suit. She also limited the injunction to officers deployed in the Twin Cities, rather than extending it statewide.
Handing a victory to local activists in Minnesota’s most populous city, US District Judge Kate Menendez issued an injunction barring federal agents from retaliating against individuals engaged in non-violent, unobstructive protest activity.
The ruling was in response to a lawsuit filed against the US Department of Homeland Security and other federal agencies on December 17, three weeks before an immigration agent fatally shot Renee Good, a 37-year-old woman in Minneapolis, spawning waves of protests and putting the city on edge.
The court case was brought on behalf of six protesters and observers who claimed their constitutional rights had been infringed by the actions of ICE agents.
The 83-page order explicitly prohibits federal officers from detaining people who are peacefully protesting or merely observing the officers, unless there is reasonable suspicion that they are interfering with law enforcement or have committed a crime.
Federal agents also are banned from using pepper spray, tear gas or other crowd-control munitions against peaceful demonstrators or bystanders observing and recording the immigration enforcement operations, the judge ruled.
Menendez wrote that the government, in defending the street tactics of its immigration officers, had failed to “explain why it is necessary for them to arrest and use force against peaceful observers.”
Stopping or detaining drivers and passengers in vehicles when there is no reason to believe they are forcibly obstructing or interfering with federal agents is likewise prohibited, according to the court order.
Order comes amid heightened tensions
“There may be ample suspicion to stop cars, and even arrest drivers, engaged in dangerous conduct while following immigration enforcement officers, but that does not justify stops of cars not breaking the law,” Menendez wrote.
The DHS did not immediately respond to a Reuters request for comment.
The ruling comes nearly two weeks after the Trump administration announced it was sending 2,000 immigration agents to the Minneapolis area, bolstering an earlier deployment in what the DHS called its largest such operation in history.
The surge in heavily armed officers from the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency and Border Patrol has since grown to nearly 3,000, dwarfing the ranks of local police officers in the Twin Cities metropolitan area of Minneapolis and St. Paul.
Tensions over the deployment have mounted considerably since an ICE agent fatally shot Good, a mother of three, behind the wheel of her car on January 7.
At the time, Good was taking part in one of numerous neighborhood patrols organized by local activists to track and monitor ICE activities.
Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, one of the federal officials named in the lawsuit, said after the shooting that Good had been “stalking and impeding” ICE agents all day and had committed an act of “domestic terrorism” by trying to run over federal officers.
Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey and local activists disputed Noem’s account, saying Good posed no physical threat to ICE agents. They pointed to video clips of the incident they said showed that Good was trying to drive her car away from officers and that the use of lethal force against her was unjustified.
Frey and Minnesota Governor Tim Walz have repeatedly demanded that the Trump administration withdraw the immigration agents, asserting that the operation is being conducted in a reckless manner endangering the public.
While largely siding with the plaintiffs in the case, the judge did not grant all their requests, declining to ban the federal government from actions not specifically taken against those who filed suit. She also limited the injunction to officers deployed in the Twin Cities, rather than extending it statewide.
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