Belgium puts 23 on trial over UK migrant truck deaths

The bodies of the migrants were discovered in Britain when the container they were in was opened in Grays

Belgium on Wednesday opened the trial of 23 people suspected of involvement in a people-smuggling ring implicated in the deaths of 39 Vietnamese migrants on a truck in Britain two years ago.

The Bruges trial, expected to last two days, focuses on the fact that the truck left for Britain on October 22, 2019 from Anderlecht on the outskirts of Brussels, where the gang allegedly had two safe houses to group migrants.

They had tried without success to pierce the metal container's roof with a pole.

A Belgian prosecutor told the trial: "What stays with me the most is a bloody handprint on the door of the container."

- 'Well organised' -

In May last year, Belgian authorities raided several addresses, most in the Brussels region, to round up Vietnamese suspected of links to the people-smuggling outfit.

At least 18 of the 23 defendants were allegedly members of the people-smuggling ring, with the remainder alleged accomplices used as safe-house guards and grocery shoppers.

Van Hong allegedly controlled when the migrants could turn on their mobile phones and watched over their arrival and stay in Brussels, which served as a staging point in Europe before the voyage to Britain. 

Prosecutors said the gang used an Irish trucking company that regularly imported Vietnamese biscuits to get the migrants across the Channel, and that Vietnamese gang members took charge of them once they got to Britain.

- Poor region of Vietnam -

Families there can rack up debts of thousands of dollars to have one member of their family smuggled into Britain in the hope they can secure a better life.

Belgian authorities, who early last year conducted their investigation with counterparts in France -- where 13 people were charged -- established that the alleged ring daily transported dozens of migrants coming from Southeast Asia.

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