Three men are found by a court in Catania in Sicily guilty and are sentenced to 20 years in prison for having much extra people onboard of a wooden boat which resulted to have a total of 49 people suffocated to death, reports Reuters.
The crew of the Norwegian Siem Pilot had the mission to retrieve the dead bodies and take care of them.
The serious incident occurred on 15th of August 2015. In addition, Norwegian police performed recorded some fingerprints and other traces that could be relevant to identify who was behind the smuggling.
Altogether 313 people survived the journey in the overcrowded fishing boat.
It is partly based on information provided by the Norwegian police that three men are convicted of murder and human smuggling.
– It’s good to see that the information we provide about those facing this cynical traffic can produce results.
The incident happened last August was a real human tragedy, says Lise Dunham, who was force commander during the rescue mission in August 2015.
For police crew of Siem Pilot intelligence and information gathering are an important part of the mission. People suspected of organizing this and information connected to that was passed to the Italian police.
Since its inception in June 2015, Siem Pilot collected information for police for about 160 people we suspect have had a role in human smuggling.
We know that Italian police have gone ahead with the cases an arrest at least twenty people.
Source: politi.no / Norway Today
