Hungarian court imprisons Afghan, 3 Bulgarians for life over deaths of 71 migrants
A court in the Hungarian city of Szeged has sentenced to life imprisonment an Afghan and three Bulgarians for the deaths of 71 migrants who asphxiated in a lorry, Bulgarian National Radio reported on June 20.
The four were charged with manslaughter and human trafficking in connection with the August 2015 incident, when the bodies of the 71 migrants – 59 men, eight women and four children – were found in the lorry, which had been abandoned on a motorway in Austria. The migrants were from Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan.
In June 2018, a court in Hungary sentenced the four accused to 25 years imprisonment.
Prosecutor Gabor Schmitt appealed against this sentence, saying that it was too lenient.
The decision of the higher court is final and not subject to appeal. The court took into account that the four had refused to stop the lorry and open its doors to enable the migrants to get air, in spite of the desperate calls of the people inside.
