A Swansea man has been found guilty of smuggling seven migrants in a tiny hidden compartment of a van.
Anas al Mustafa, 43, smuggled the migrants in a specially adapted van with a hidden compartment that travelled on board a ferry between Dieppe, in France, and Newhaven, East Sussex, on 16 February.
Jurors heard how the crew on the Seven Sisters ship heard pleas from inside a van on deck and used an axe to break down the fake partition inside hiding the people.
Prosecutor Nick Corsellis KC said the hidden compartment measured two metres across and 194cm tall but just 37cm in narrow width – which forced the migrants to stand.
They could not move to any meaningful degree and were not provided with water, the prosecutor told al Mustafa’s trial.
Two of the migrants had lost consciousness by the time they were rescued.
Mr Corsellis said: “The heat created by seven people in such a small space and the lack of sufficient air/oxygen had created a highly dangerous situation.
“It was no doubt this mortal emergency that forced the migrants to call for help in desperation.”
Father-of-two al Mustafa had denied assisting unlawful immigration to the UK, saying the day the migrants were found was the “most difficult” of this life.
Speaking through an Arabic interpreter, he told Lewes Crown Court: “I was in a situation where the shock was too massive I was almost out of consciousness.”
Al Mustafa, who is originally from Syria but moved to the UK in 2011, told the court he was paid £500 by a man he met in Syria to drive the van to Liverpool to get an MOT.
A nurse who came to the aid of the migrants said one person “stood out” during the discovery.
She described them as an Asian man with a puffer jacket who was “sitting on the ground seemingly scrolling through his mobile telephone and was remarkably calm in her view”.
The prosecutor identified that man as al Mustafa.
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Source Agencies
