Asylum seeker with home-made boat sentencing over deaths of four migrants in Channel

For free actual time breaking information alerts despatched straight to your inbox signal as much as our breaking information emails

Sign as much as our free breaking information emails

An asylum seeker has been detained for 9 years and 6 months for the manslaughter of fellow migrants who drowned attempting to cross the English Channel.

Ibrahima Bah was discovered responsible of killing four migrants when he piloted an “unseaworthy” boat between France and the UK on 14 December 2022.

During a retrial at Canterbury Crown Court, Bah mentioned smugglers threatened to kill him if he didn’t drive the boat however the prosecution mentioned he was not telling the reality and he owed his fellow passengers a “duty of care” as their pilot.

Jurors reached a majority verdict of 10 to 2 in what’s believed to be the primary conviction of its form on Monday.

They additionally discovered the Senegalese nationwide unanimously responsible of facilitating unlawful entry to the UK.

Sentencing Bah on Friday, Mr Justice Johnson KC, mentioned: “The boat was wholly inadequate, and not remotely seaworthy for a Channel crossing.

“It was a death trap, just as every boat of its type which sets of across the Channel in similar circumstances is a death trap – the fact that in many cases fatalities do not occur is not remotely reassuring.

“What happened is an utter tragedy for those who died and for their families.”

During the trial, jurors have been advised that the home-built, low-quality inflatable ought to have had not more than 20 individuals on board however carried at the very least 43 individuals in the English Channel that evening.

While the bulk of travellers paid 1000’s of euros to smugglers for a spot in the overcrowded vessel, prosecutor Duncan Atkinson KC mentioned it seems Bah didn’t pay for his journey as a result of he piloted the dingy, subsequently owing his fellow passengers a “duty of care”.

Mr Atkinson mentioned Bah was not educated or licensed to steer the voyage and there was inadequate security tools corresponding to life jackets and no flares or radio on board.

The courtroom heard that when the boat obtained into bother a quantity of migrants described water reaching their knees inside half-hour of leaving the French coast.

One asylum seeker, Amrullah Ahmadzai, described to jurors how everybody on the boat was screaming and attempting to name for assistance on their cell phones in the course of the journey, earlier than being rescued by a fishing boat.

He described how the skipper tried to steer the dinghy in direction of the fishing vessel to assist the passengers, and with out him “we would have all died”.

A crew on a UK fishing boat known as the Arcturus got here throughout the sinking dinghy and tried to rescue the passengers, with assist from the RNLI, air ambulance and UK Border Force.

A complete of 39 survivors have been delivered to shore in the port of Dover.

The precise quantity of migrants who drowned is unknown because it seems at the very least one migrant’s physique was not recovered, Mr Atkinson mentioned.

Three of the individuals who died have been identified solely as unknown male individuals whereas the opposite man was named as Hajratullah Ahmadi.

Supporters of Bah attended the sentencing and are anticipated to carry a protest exterior the Home Office in London on Friday night.

Following the decision on Monday, Captain Support UK, a solidarity platform for these accused of driving boats to Europe, mentioned Bah’s conviction was a “violent escalation in the persecution of migrants to ‘Stop the Boats’”.

However, Illegal Immigration Minister Michael Tomlinson mentioned on X: “Ibrahima Bah put dozens of lives in extreme danger by taking charge of a perilous and illegal small boat crossing. It is right that he has been brought to justice today.

“Once you get into a small boat, criminal gangs don’t care whether you live or die.”