SEVEN BULGARIANS FACE CHARGES OVER THE DEATH OF 71 MIGRANTS IN A LORRY

The Hungarian police said on 12th of October it recommended various murder and smuggling charges against one Afghan and seven Bulgarian suspects for the deaths of 71 migrants who suffocated in the back of a refrigerated lorry found in Austria, close to the border with Hungary in August 2015. International arrest warrants had been issued for three other Bulgarians.

The investigation identified that migrants from Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan were among those who died in the back of the lorry – 59 men, 8 women and 4 children. They were picked up by the smugglers from Hungary and were being transported to Austria.

The autopsy showed that the migrants suffered death by suffocation while the lorry was in Hungarian territory. The perpetrators knew by the time they crossed into Austria that the passengers were dead, the Hungarian investigation said.

The suspects are 11 – an Afghan, 9 Bulgarians and one person with Bulgarian and Lebanese citizenship. Eight of them were under arrest in Hungary and international arrest warrants were issued for three other Bulgarians.

“We are going to recommend filing murder charges against four people.

Regarding the others, we are going to recommend filing charges of human smuggling committed in a criminal organization,” Zoltan Boross, head of the National Investigation Bureau’s anti-illegal migration department, said.

Boross said the Afghan man was considered to be the local boss of the group. He had been living in Hungary since March 2013 as a recognized refugee with the right to asylum, which had been withdrawn in 2015. The investigation described him as “unscrupulous and greedy”.

Boross said that a day after the death of the 71 migrants, the Austrian police found another 67 migrants transported in a similar lorry by the same group of smugglers.

The group used up to 15 vehicles. From February to August 2015, the group had been involved in smuggling at least 1,106 migrants, for 1,000 – 1,500 euro per person. The revenues were forwarded through money transfers to Afghanistan, Boross said.

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