(AFP) A French court on Tuesday issued prison terms of up to 15 years to 18 people, mainly Iraqi Kurds, convicted of forming a vast gang to smuggle migrants aboard small boats across the Channel to England.
The investigation found that this particular network, between 2020 and 2022, had great control over migrant crossings from France to England, which have cost dozens of lives in the last years.
The stiffest sentence of 15 years in prison was given to Iraqi national Mirkhan Rasoul, 26, who was accused of being the leader of the network and coordinating its actions from his French prison cell after previous convictions.
The sentences issued by the court in the northern city of Lille for the other 17 accused, who included one woman, ranged from one to 12 years in jail.
