Hungary jails human smugglers for ‘horrendous’ suffocation of 71 migrants in back of truck

A Hungarian court on Thursday sentenced four human traffickers to 25 years in prison each for their roles in the 2015 case in which 71 migrants suffocated to death in the back of a refrigerated truck found on a highway in Austria.

The principal defendant, an Afghan man, and three Bulgarian accomplices, were found guilty in the southern city of Kecskemet of being part of a criminal organisation and committing multiple crimes, including human smuggling and murder.

Ten other defendants, mostly Bulgarians, were given prison terms ranging between three and 12 years. Three of the men convicted are fugitives.

Fifty-nine men, eight women and four children from Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan suffocated in the back of a refrigerated truck with Hungarian number plates. The truck was found abandoned in the emergency lane of a highway near Parndorf, Austria, near the Hungarian border, on August 27, 2015.

The migrants had boarded that truck near the village of Morahalom, at Hungary’s southern border with Serbia, before heading toward Austria. According to prosecutors, who had requested life sentences for the four main defendants, the 71 victims “suffocated in horrendous conditions three hours after the departure,” while still in Hungary.

Prosecutor Gabor Schmidt said he would appeal the sentences, saying they are too lenient.