French Court Convicts 18 Human Traffickers, Jails Ringleader for 15 Years

A French court has found 18 people guilty of smuggling illegal immigrants across the English Channel to the UK. Fourteen of the 18 defendants are from Iraq, with the others being French, Polish, Dutch, and Iranian. One of the alleged ringleaders, who hailed from Iraq, was sentenced by the court in Lille, northern France, to 15 years in prison and was fined 200,000 euros ($218,000). The others were sentenced to between two and 10 years in prison. One of the defense lawyers, Kamel Abbas, told reporters that the severity of the sentences was a testimony to “the scale of the case, and of the intention to severely punish the smugglers.”...