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Two men have been convicted of killing 39 immigrants who were found dead in a container truck in Essex last year.
Eamonn Harrison and Gheorghe Nica were tried on charges of the murder of Vietnamese citizens whose bodies were discovered at an industrial estate in Grays in October 2019.
Temperatures in the unit had reached an “unbearable” 38.5 ° C (101 ° F) as the men, women and children, ages 15 to 44, were sealed inside for at least 12 hours, the court heard .
The migrants were found dead on an industrial estate in Grays, Essex
Each of them had paid more than £ 10,000 to be smuggled into the UK and had desperately tried to raise the alarm while suffocating inside the pitch-black refrigerated unit, which had been turned off, they were told. jury.
Following a two-month trial at the Old Bailey, the truck driver Harrison was convicted of 39 counts of involuntary manslaughter, while organizer Nica was convicted of the same charges.
Eamonn Harrison denied killing the migrants
Gheorghe Nica pleaded not guilty to manslaughter
Harrison, from County Down, Northern Ireland, was also convicted of conspiracy to aid illegal immigration, a charge Nica, from Basildon, Essex, admitted, though he denied being involved in the fatal trip.
Two other defendants, trucker Christopher Kennedy and Valentin Calota, were found guilty of conspiracy to aid illegal immigration.
Truck driver Maurice Robinson and transportation chief Ronan Hughes had previously admitted to the murder of the migrants.
Maurice Robinson pleaded guilty to the murder of migrants
Ronan Hughes also pleaded guilty to 39 counts of involuntary manslaughter.
The court heard that Robinson, who discovered the bodies after picking up the trailer when it arrived in Purfleet, Essex, had received a message from Hughes saying: “Give them air quickly, don’t let them out.”
Most of the migrants are believed to have boarded the container truck in northern France before it was driven to Zeebrugge in Belgium and loaded onto a freighter bound for Purfleet on October 22 last year.
They included college graduates, restaurant and nail bar workers, a bricklayer and a hairdresser, and some of the victims’ families borrowed thousands of pounds to pay for the fatal journey.
A message sent by Ronan Hughes to Maurice Robinson read: ‘Give them air quickly, don’t let them out’
Pham Thi Tra My, 26, was among those aboard the truck.
After Robinson picked up the container shortly after midnight on October 23, CCTV footage showed the moment he parked his truck and opened the trailer to find 39 people dead inside.
He called Hughes and Nica before dialing 999 about 23 minutes after discovering the bodies.
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Moment truck driver found dead migrants
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999 call from trucker who found bodies
In providing evidence, 23-year-old Harrison denied knowing that there were people in his trailer on Oct. 22 or on two previous successful human smuggling trips.
He told the jury that he thought he was dealing with “stolen property” and was watching Netflix in bed when the trailer loaded on October 22.
Nica, 43, admitted to arranging transportation for the two previous successful human trafficking trips on October 11 and 18 last year, but denied being involved in the October 22-23 tragedy.
The British-Romanian told the jury that he had a “burner” phone for his four girlfriends, not a contraband.
