The Public Prosecution Service (OM) demands 20 years imprisonment for a 42-year-old Eritrean for the most heinous type of human smuggling. According to the OM, the suspect played a prominent role in an international organization involved in migration crime. During his trial at the Overijssel court, witnesses describe how he locked them up and abused them during their journey to Europe in Libya. These are chilling testimonies of torture, hunger, and rape.
“You hear that a lot can happen in the Sahara. You know you can drown in the sea. You know women can be raped in Libya. You know men are tortured in Libya. You know that beforehand. But you have a goal and want to reach it and you think: Maybe I will survive whatever happens and you dont think about it. You just want to continue your journey.”
The speaker is a witness from perhaps the largest human smuggling trial ever held in the Netherlands. The witness tells what he knew beforehand about the journey he was going to make from Eritrea to Europe. Migrants must cross Libya, a country with a vast desert, if they want to reach Europe by sea. It is lawless there, militias and human smugglers run the show. Still, many people take the risk and travel this dangerous Central Mediterranean Route. Among them are many refugees from Eritrea, a country with a dictatorship where human rights violations are daily occurrences.
“This drives them into the hands of human smugglers who demand large sums of money to get to Europe, often via dangerous routes and means of transport. Women, men, and children drown at sea, if they are among the ‘lucky ones’ to reach the sea,” said the public prosecutors on Wednesday in the Zwolle courtroom.
Netherlands directly involved
They also answered why this case is being tried in the Netherlands. The OM believes the facts are so serious that no country can afford to do nothing and because the Netherlands is directly involved in the committed acts. For example, relatives of smuggled persons in the Netherlands are extorted. They must pay in the Netherlands for the transit of their relatives to the Netherlands via cash transfers, which reach the smugglers through hawala banking.
The criminal organizations profit model is also directly linked to the systematic abuse in the Libyan camps, according to the OM. After all; no smuggling without payments, no payments without extortion, no extortion without violence. Relatives, friends, and acquaintances in Europe are pressured to pay money for the smuggling of their loved ones by witnessing live abuse over the phone. Witnesses almost all experience this:
“When you are beaten, even the sound of the whip is heard on the phone. Unconsciously, you start screaming. You say everything they want. You tell your family ‘you have to pay for me, I am beaten, I am having a hard time.’ They also hear the pain on the phone.”
Only after payment may one continue to the next camp or by sea to Europe. “The consequence of human smuggling also reveals itself in the Netherlands, because after access to the Schengen area, a migrant has access to all associated countries. This undermines the Dutch asylum policy,” said the prosecutors.
Libyan camps
In the overcrowded Libyan camps, there is hardly any water or food, and poor hygiene causes diseases and infections. Many testimonies concern the fate of women who are sexually abused and raped. Witnesses describe suspect W. as the cruelest of all smugglers on the route.
W. told her ‘you will pay for the third time but I will also rape you. He said that in Arabic... then there was honking and she was taken away.”
About a woman who refused to go with the suspect human smuggler, another witness states:
“They treated her with electric shocks and water hoses. Eventually, they tied her hands and feet and she had to sit in the sun all day. Another girl was also beaten and tied up by W. because she was also planning to escape according to W. She was six months pregnant and had a miscarriage. W. just laughed and humiliated her. She was tied up like this for three days.”
Many refugees tell how people around them die from hunger, diseases, and the consequences of abuse. Their lawyers speak of ‘stories that seem to come from a horror script but are reality for clients’. During the trial, four of them exercise their right to speak.
Identification of suspect
The man on trial denies being the smuggler in question. He invokes his right to remain silent during the trial. But witnesses recognize him as the man who abused them with water hoses and extorted their relatives. Based on information from the suspects Facebook accounts, witness identifications of him in photos (in which he partially recognizes himself), and facial comparison research results by the Royal Netherlands Marechaussee (KMar) and the Netherlands Forensic Institute (NFI), the OM concluded it is indeed the same person.
Appropriate sentence
The OM believes it can be proven legally and convincingly that the suspect led a criminal organization with the intent to commit the crimes of human smuggling, kidnapping, extortion, violent crimes, and sexual offenses. Only the maximum sentence applicable to these crimes is appropriate for him:
“He deprived the victims of their freedom and dignity. He held them in deplorable conditions, starved them, tortured them, and withheld necessary medical care. He exposed them to life-threatening situations in the desert, in camps, and in overcrowded old and leaky boats at sea, without food, fuel, or engine. Tens of thousands of people have not survived their flight on the Central Mediterranean Route in recent years.”
Lengthy investigation
The Pearce investigation file, conducted by the National Public Prosecutors Office together with the KMar, covers over 30,000 pages and focuses on the period 2014-2019. The investigation started in 2018 and is closely coordinated within a Joint Investigation Team with Italian authorities. Furthermore, information has been shared by the ICC for the investigation. Besides about 200 witness statements, phone data, recorded conversations, satellite photos, data from public sources, and financial transactions provide the evidence.
In total, seven suspects have been summoned in this trial. The man now on trial was extradited from Ethiopia in October 2022, where he was convicted of human smuggling within Africa. A second main suspect is expected to be extradited soon by the United Arab Emirates (UAE). The other five accused are allegedly involved in financial transactions and will stand trial next year.
The trial in Zwolle will continue next week with the defense lawyers’ plea.
