A man was arrested last August Alicante As the boss of a boat on which 15 other people were traveling, he was accepted by the National Police for a prison sentence this Monday. two years imprisonment for an offense against the rights of foreign citizens.
The defendant initially faced a six-year prison sentence, but the prosecution and defense lawyer Concepción Ferrández Campillo, from the office of José Manuel Yepes, Following the defendant’s admission of guilt, to which an agreement was reached before the trial started, the Public Prosecutor’s Office reduced the defendant’s sentence request to 2 years.
Risk
According to the indictment accepted by the prosecutor’s office, the defendant brought 1 item.5 people They escaped from the Algerian coast and risked their lives on the journey.
At dawn on August 18, the defendant captained the boat with the crew and set out for the coast of Spain. 4 of them are minors.
During the transition, their engines broke down and They were left adrift on the high seas. They were later spotted and rescued by the Salvamar Leo Sea Rescue team and transported to the port of Alicante.
According to the prosecution, the boat did not meet the minimum security requirements and the defendant did not have the necessary qualifications to undertake such a journey.
The defendant was inside preventive prison Since his arrest last August in Alicante, where the National Police collected at least one statement identifying him as the pilot of the boat.
To save
The boat was assisted by Salvamento Marítimo about twenty miles off the coast of Xàbia. There were 11 men and one woman on board, including the captain. a five-year-old girl and three young men aged 15 to 16.
A protected witness told the National Police that the boat set off from an Algerian town towards the peninsula on the night of August 18. Each immigrant would pay a price 5,800 euros for the pass According to the witness, the boat’s engine broke down at dawn and they were adrift in the open sea.
After being adrift at sea, they were located and rescued by Sea Rescue. The team transported them to the Temporary Care Center for Aliens (CATE) in the Port of Alicante. The Red Cross provided them with first aid and they appear to be in good health.