Turkish people smuggler sentenced to 12 years in prison

A court in Szeged, in southern Hungary, has sentenced a Turkish man to twelve years in prison without the possibility of parole for transporting seventeen illegal migrants in a sealed refrigerator lorry in 2023, the court said on Tuesday.

The non-binding ruling sentences the man for attempted murder and acting as an accomplice in people smuggling. He has also been ordered to be expelled from Hungary indefinitely.

According to the ruling, the man smuggled the illegal entrants across the Hungary-Romania border on April 13, 2023, in the closed cargo hold of a refrigerator lorry that could not be opened from the inside. They travelled for ten hours without interruption, crammed into the hot, dark, and tight space without food or drink. It said the cargo hold had no adequate ventilation.

The people in the cargo hold tried to contact the driver by phoning his accomplice, banging on the walls, and swaying the cargo hold from inside to get his attention. The ruling said they had saved their own lives by smashing a hole into the wall of the compartment. The defence has appealed the sentence, the statement said.

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