Gardaí travel to Belgium for trial of traffikers of asylum seekers

GARDAÍ are due to travel to Belgium for the case of five men accused of trafficking 13 asylum seekers, eight of whom died en route, to Ireland over a year ago.

An international police investigation was launched to trace the gang which arranged transport for the asylum seekers found dead in a container in Wexford on December 8, 2001.

The men, who include a father and son and a truck driver, are due before the courts in Belgium on February 25, in connection with the incident. The case is likely to take three days.

Among those who survived the tortuous journey is Eyup Isik, a 17-year-old Turkish Kurd. His friend was not so lucky and perished in the course of the journey. Eyup now lives in Wexford town with his 22-year-old brother, Adem, who travelled from Britain after the tragedy. Both love living in Wexford and want to put everything behind them, a friend said.

“They are getting on with things and they are in great form. Eyup’s brother moved here to be with him. Another survivor is also still living here. Two of the three of them are working.

“It has been a terrible time for them but they’re just trying to get on with life. It’s great they’ve managed to turn their life around, when you consider what they have endured,” the friend added.

Three men were quizzed by police about the cruelty endured by the asylum seekers days after the grim find and detectives also uncovered a safe house used by the traffickers near the port of Zeebrugge in Belgium.

Police have established that the 13 asylum seekers were put on board the 40-foot container at a petrol station/roadside cafe used by truckers outside Brussels. They paid £5,000 each and were told they would be taken on a four-hour journey by sea from Zeebrugge to Dover to start a new life.

Instead, the group were put on board the wrong container at the petrol station and had to suffer a 54-hour sea journey in storm conditions.

As a result of the mistake, they were inside the container as it was loaded onto the Dutch Navigator ship at Zeebrugge until it was opened at Drinagh business park outside Wexford town four days later.

Inquests into tragic deaths found the eight died from a lack of oxygen.

At a heart-breaking first anniversary commemoration at the scene where the container was opened, survivor, Karadede Guler told how his 28-year-old wife and children, Imam, 9, and Berkan, 3, died.

He said his life is now empty.

“I am left alone on my own in this world, no one to understand me. Birds sing songs while I cry on your grave, a grave is no place for you,” he said as he gathered with relatives on December 9 last year.