A Senegalese asylum seeker tried for manslaughter by a British court after the deaths of four other migrants during a Channel crossing in December 2022 was sentenced on Friday to nine and a half years in prison.
Ibrahima Bah was arrested for having piloted the boat which sank.
Four migrants, including a teenager, died during this crossing of the Channel, 39 others were rescued.
The court in Canterbury, in the south of England, on Monday found Ibrahima Bah guilty of manslaughter and aiding illegal entry into the United Kingdom.
During sentencing on Friday the judge said the boat was
“unseaworthy”
.
“It was a death trap, just like every boat of this type that undertakes the crossing of the Channel (...) is a death trap
,” he declared.
This boat should not have carried more than twenty people, the prosecution said during the trial, but forty-three migrants were on board.
There were not enough life jackets, no flares or radios on board.
The accused did not pay for his crossing in exchange for which he had to drive the boat
During the trial, one of the migrants recounted the screams and cries for help, before a fishing boat came to their rescue.
He also said that Ibrahima Bah had tried to bring the boat closer to the fishing boat, and that without him
“we would all have died”
.
About thirty minutes after leaving the French coast, the water was already up to the knees of the boat's passengers.
Unlike the other migrants in the boat, Ibrahima Bah had not paid for his crossing in exchange for which he had to drive the boat.
This Senegalese, aged over 18 according to British justice but whose precise age remains uncertain, had claimed during the trial that the smugglers had threatened to kill him if he did not pilot the boat, but without managing to convince the 'charge.
He also said he initially agreed to cross for free, but changed his mind when faced with too many migrants who had to board.
Nearly 30,000 migrants crossed the Channel last year, after a record of more than 45,000 in 2022. British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak has made the fight against illegal immigration one of his priorities.
A few months before the legislative elections, he still hopes to have one of his flagship measures adopted, the expulsion of migrants to Rwanda.