Michael Tomlinson, the minister for illegal immigration, said it was "right that he has been brought to justice" because Bah "put dozens of lives in extreme danger by taking charge of a perilous and illegal small boat crossing".
Bah was not part of a people-smuggling gang. As he passed sentence, the judge accepted Bah was, in fact, one of the people being trafficked.
He was targeted by prosecutors because he had been picked from the passengers to steer the boat. As the prosecution noted, members of people-smuggling gangs do not ordinarily put themselves in harm's way to personally steer the boat. And, on Bah's evidence, he was forced into it.
It is for that reason that some campaigners consider Bah not responsible for the deaths of four people but as a victim of people-traffickers, whose business model is sustained by the government's refusal to open safe and legal routes. And, they believe, he has been prosecuted under a law designed to criminalise people whose desperation drives them under the control of those gangs.
Diese Geschichte stammt aus der February 24, 2024-Ausgabe von The Guardian.
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Diese Geschichte stammt aus der February 24, 2024-Ausgabe von The Guardian.
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