Dream of escape that became nightmare

IT was supposed to be an escape to freedom. It ended up as a nightmare trip from hell.

Thirteen immigrants looking for a better life, spent more than four days and nights locked in a metal container on a journey they thought would take just three hours.

Within an hour of being smuggled on to a ship in Zeebrugge, they were having trouble breathing. By the time the 40ft container was opened in Ireland, eight of them were dead.

Yesterday eight people went on trial in Brussels charged with manslaughter, with trafficking in human beings, being members of a criminal gang and with assault.

The accused include taxi drivers Mohamed Kebdani, 31, Abdeslam Tribak, 37, and Enver Berisha, 48, a Kosovar who lives in Wemmel, Belgium. The others charged are Albanian Kosovars Flamour Domi, 45, and his son 20-year-old Donald who live in Brussels and the Belgian lorry driver, Johan Schrowen, 50.

The two men who masterminded the illegal operation - Bekim Zogaj, 22, and Ozgur Doganbaloglu, 42 - are still on the run.

The gang, run by ethnic Albanian Kosovars, is believed to have smuggled thousands of people, mainly from Turkey to Britain. They charged up to €10,000 per family.

Two senior gardaí told the court in Bruges of the shocking sight when the lorry containing furniture was opened at Drinagh business park in Wexford on December 8, 2001.

Det Supt Pat Brehony, National Bureau of Criminal Investigation, said: “Five were still alive but comatose. They survived because they sat as close to the ceiling and the four tiny air vents as they could.”

He said the survivors were naked and were severely dehydrated in the sweltering heat and stench of what had become a tin coffin.

Garda Brehony said the victims, who included three children aged between four and 12, had entered the container at a truck stop outside Brussels on the morning of December 4, 2001. “When they were being loaded they were told they were going to Dover and that they would be there within three hours.”

The immigrants spent more than 101 hours in the container, surviving on 18 bottles of mineral water and some cheese. The container was ventilated by four small apertures, measuring two inches by six inches. The victims died of lack of oxygen.

Detective Pat Mulcahy from Wexford, who interviewed the survivors, told the court they would all have liked to attend the hearing, but they could not afford to travel.

The prosecution has asked for the maximum sentence of 17 years’ jail for the defendants, who include a father and son.

The case continues today but a judgment may not be given for two weeks.