Hungarian man breaks key into lock of burning van full of Syrians, watches with girlfriend

The Prosecutor General’s Office of Bács-Kiskun County, Hungary has indicted a man and his partner working for a human trafficking criminal organisation for attempted murder and human trafficking.

During one of the deliveries, the perpetrators pulled over their van, which was smoking due to a technical fault. They then denied to the officers who stopped them that there was anyone in the cargo hold, 24.hu reports. The man deliberately broke the key into the lock, and then both of them watched impassively as the police officers rescued the people hiding in the cargo hold of the burning van.

The prosecution asked for 14 and 6 years of imprisonment

The burnt van. Source: Magyarország Ügyészsége (ugyeszseg.hu)

Marianna Négyessyné Bodó, spokeswoman of the Bács-Kiskun County Prosecutor’s Office, told 24.hu that the prosecution had asked for 14 years of imprisonment for the man and six years for the woman in case of confession in a preparatory meeting. In response to the Hungarian news portal’s question, she also said that both men gave partial confessions during the investigation phase and that the man denied attempted murder.

According to the indictment, from February last year, the 19-year-old man from Budapest participated as a transporter in the activities of a criminal organisation. He helped with smuggling refugees from Syria to Serbia via the Western Balkans route and then to Hungary with the help of “walkers”.

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Money for successful deliveries

The burnt van. Source: Magyarország Ügyészsége (ugyeszseg.hu)

One of the organisers and leaders of the criminal group was a childhood acquaintance of the man. He sent instructions to the defendants by phone and social networking applications. He also sent money to them via transfer systems for successful deliveries.

The latter was conditional on the defendants providing video evidence of the migrants boarding and arriving at the final destination. In the first month, the pair delivered more than 40 border crossers to the Kőszeg and Mosonmagyaróvár area in four trips, for which they received nearly one and a half million forints.

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He deliberately broke the key into the lock

The burnt van. Source: Magyarország Ügyészsége (ugyeszseg.hu)

The man, when repeatedly questioned by the police, flatly denied that there was anything in the cargo hold. He even said that the rear doors were jammed and could not be opened. By this time, there was heavy smoke and flames in the engine compartment. The officers asked him to hand over the key to the cargo hold, but he made a decisive move and smashed the key into the lock. He was expecting that the people trapped in the hold would die in the fire.

The smoke had spread to the passenger compartment and the front of the vehicle was on fire. The passenger compartment was engulfed in smoke and the windscreen shattered. There was shouting and banging from the cargo area, and the officers tried to force the door open manually. The pair was watching the whole incident, leaning against the guardrail. They watched the struggle impassively, and the man even sent a pictureto their client about the burning car.

The prosecutor’s office accuses the man of attempted homicide with malice aforethought, with particular cruelty, and of attempted murder of several persons. It also accuses him and his partner of the crime of human trafficking in a criminal organisation.

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Source: 24.hu, ugyeszseg.hu