A Belgian court has heard about the harrowing four-day journey from Belgium to Ireland of 13 illegal immigrants, eight of whom were found dead in a truck container in a Co Wexford business park 14 months ago. Two Garda detectives gave evidence at the start of the trial of six men charged with human trafficking and manslaughter in connection with the tragedy.
Det Supt Pat Brehony of the National Bureau of Criminal Investigation told a court in Bruges yesterday that the victims, who included three children aged between four and 12, had entered the container at a truck stop outside Brussels on the morning of December 4th, 2001.
"When they were being loaded they were told they were going to Dover and that they would be there within three hours," he said.
In fact, the immigrants spent more than 101 hours in the container, surviving on 18 bottles of mineral water and some cheese. The container was ventilated by four small apertures, measuring two inches by six inches, and the victims died of lack of oxygen.
The defendants include Mr Johan Schroven (50), a Belgian who drove the container to Zeebrugge and loaded it on to the Dutch Navigator, a ship bound for Belview Harbour in Co Waterford.
Other defendents include Mr Flamour Domi (45) and Mr Donald Domi (20), a Kosovo Albanian father and son living in Brussels, and three Brussels-based taxi drivers, Mr Mohammed Kebdani (31), Mr Abdeslam Tribak (37) and Mr Enver Berisha (48).
All six men who appeared in court yesterday are accused of belonging to an Albanian-led gang that Belgian police believe responsible for the illegal trafficking of hundreds of people to Britain.
Two other men, Mr Bekim Zogaj (22) and Mr Osgur Doganbaloglu (42), have also been charged in connection with the Co Wexford tragedy, but both have so far evaded arrest.
The court heard that the illegal immigrants, 11 Turks, one Algerian and one Kosovo Albanian, were taken by taxi from the centre of Brussels to a motorway truck stop on the morning of December 4th, 2001. Mr Kebdani and Mr Tribak both denied that they had driven them from Brussels, although Mr Kebdani admitted that he had driven illegal immigrants for a Kosovo Albanian gang in the past.
Det Garda Pat Mulcahy from Wexford told the court that most of the survivors had identified Mr Zogaj and Mr Donald Domi as the men who placed them in the container outside Brussels. "To the survivors, those two always worked together," he said.
One survivor said that Mr Zogaj asked one of the victims, a young boy with a knowledge of English, to translate a document inside the container. It said "London/Luton", and Mr Zogaj appeared to regard it as confirmation that the container was destined for Britain.
The container was loaded with furniture from Milan and had travelled by rail to Cologne before being collected by Mr Schroven.
Because the Irish order was so urgent, it was routed directly to Co Waterford from Zeebrugge. Mr Schroven told Belgian detectives that he was unaware of the immigrants' presence in the container.
But Dr Filip Verbrandt, a sound and vibration expert, told the court that a normal human being would have been awakened by the noise of the immigrants entering the container. Dr Verbrandt added that Mr Verbrandt's dog, which shared the driver's cabin, would certainly have heard the noise.
The Dutch Navigator left Zeebrugge at 8.35 p.m. on December 4th, but a force 10 storm not only prolonged the sea journey to 54 hours from its usual 42, it also meant that the ship's hold was shut tightly, further limiting the air supply within the container.
Once inside the hold the container had no light whatsoever and, placed close to the ship's engine, was extremely warm. Det Supt Brehony said that a ventilation expert estimated that most of the victims died before the ship docked in Ireland and that the survivors started to panic within a few hours.
"Four of the survivors were fairly consistent about the time they started to panic. They could not breathe properly and started banging on the container. One of them tried to break open the door with an iron bar he found in the container," he said.
The immigrants' ordeal did not end when they reached Ireland because a mix-up at the harbour meant that the wrong container was collected. It was a further 24 hours before the container was opened in Drinagh business park in Co Wexford.
Ms Els D'hooghe, the presiding judge on the panel of three hearing the case, asked Det Garda Mulcahy why none of the survivors had travelled to Bruges to give evidence.
He said that, of the four survivors who live in Ireland, two were unemployed and two worked in low-paid kitchen jobs.
