2023-10-02 11:59:00
The Liège criminal court began examining a major human trafficking case on Monday. Twenty-two defendants are answering for this trafficking which would have affected between 3,000 and 5,000 migrants, with drivers recruited in Belgium. These drivers claim to have been abused by traffic organizers.
Two Turkish individuals are suspected of being the masterminds of a criminal organization active in migrant smuggling. This organization recruited individuals in Belgium, via a WhatsApp group, who were to take on the role of driver. These recruits had to rent a vehicle and go to eastern countries to pick up migrants across the “Balkan route”. In two and a half years of activities, the criminal organization is said to have affected between 3,000 and 5,000 migrants.
The court began the investigation of the case by questioning the defendants. Several of these drivers were arrested in eastern countries. A forty-year-old from Liège had participated in the rental of a vehicle left in Slovenia to allow the transport of seven Iraqis from Croatia to Slovenia in November 2019. She had been arrested in Slovenia and abandoned by the organization.
“I was tried following three days and I spent 9 months in detention in a Slovenian prison, with difficult conditions of incarceration when 12 inmates share the same cell”she detailed.
For this lady, the real head of the organization is in Turkey. “The others are the turkeys of the joke”she added.
A retired baker had been recruited to rent a van in Germany and was to receive 3,000 euros in return. “But I advanced the costs and I received nothing, because I was robbed when I arrived in Croatia”he clarified.
A third driver had transported 13 Turks and 2 Afghans to Croatia. He claims to have been sent to Croatia to transport equipment, but was allegedly threatened and forced to put migrants in his car.
The indictment is scheduled for Thursday’s hearing.
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