Two traffickers arrested: they caused the death of ten migrants in the hold of a boat

The State Police has executed two orders for the arrest of a crime suspect issued by the Public Prosecutor’s Office of Agrigento and by the Juvenile Prosecutor’s Office of Palermo, against two Egyptian citizens who landed in Lampedusa on 17 June, held responsible for having let in 54 migrants illegally in the national territory, mainly of Pakistani and Bangladeshi nationality.

All this to gain an indirect profit, by leading, governing and plotting the route at the helm of a vessel unsuitable for carrying out such a crossing and in very poor safety conditions, such as to expose people to danger for their life or safety, and causing the death by asphyxiation of ten people of Bangladeshi nationality who were inside the hold of the vessel, as well as injuries to other migrants.

The events occurred in the early hours of June 17 when, in international waters, about 47 nautical miles south of Lampedusa, the NGO ship Nadir intercepted a wooden boat of about 10 meters with 54 migrants on board and 10 bodies present in the hold of the vessel. On board the patrol boat of the local Coast Guard, the 54 rescued migrants were transferred to Lampedusa, while the intercepted boat with the 10 bodies present in the hold was towed to Lampedusa by the NGO ship Nadir.

The investigation conducted at the Lampedusa Hotspot by the SCO, the SISCO of Palermo and the Flying Squad of Agrigento, through the hearing of all the migrants who disembarked, allowed to reconstruct the phases of the sea crossing from the Libyan coast to the Italian one, also acquiring serious circumstantial evidence against the two subjects subject to the restrictive measure, who would have driven the vessel, keeping in contact, at the time of boarding, with the traffickers who operate on the coasts of Zuhar. In particular, the minor would have supervised the boarding operations of the migrants, regulating their entry and exit from the hold of the vessel. The minor also prevented the exit from the hold of the subjects who later died, even threatening them with a switchblade. Furthermore, the same investigations allowed to fully identify the 10 victims who arrived on the island.

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