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Published December 24, 2023, 11:18 a.m. ET
PARIS (AP) — Judges in France were expected to decide Sunday whether about 300 Indian citizens suspected of being human trafficking victims should continue to be held at a small airport in Champagne.
The passengers, en route to Central America, had been held at Paris-Vatry airport since Thursday after a dramatic police operation sparked by a tip-off about a possible human trafficking plot, authorities said.
According to the administration of the Marne region, the passengers appeared throughout the day before judges who will decide whether to extend their detention at the airport. If they can no longer be detained, they are free to leave the country.
“I don’t know if this has ever been done before in France,” Francois Procureur, president of the Châlons-en-Champagne bar association, told BFM TV on Saturday.
The situation is urgent because “we cannot keep foreigners in a waiting area for longer than 96 hours.” Furthermore, the freedom and custody judge must decide their fate,” he said.
In France, foreigners are not allowed to wait longer than 96 hours. AP
The four-day period can be extended to eight days with the approval of a judge, and in exceptional cases to a further eight days.
Given this urgency, the prosecutor said four hearings would be held simultaneously, with four judges, four clerks and at least four lawyers taking part in the proceedings, in addition to Indian citizens and interpreters. “We are all mobilized,” he said.
According to a statement from the Prefecture of Marne, the seizure order on the plane was lifted on Sunday morning, a decision that “considers rerouting passengers in the waiting area.”
Four hearings on the fate of the confiscated foreigners are being held simultaneously. AP
The French civil aviation authority then set about obtaining the necessary authorizations for the plane to take off again, which the prefecture said should be available “no later than Monday morning”. When the statement was made, the passengers were still being questioned.
The passengers included children and families. The youngest is a toddler of 21 months, and according to the local civil protection authority, there are several unaccompanied minors among the children.
According to the Paris prosecutor's office, two of the passengers were arrested as part of a special investigation on suspicion of human trafficking by an organized criminal group. Prosecutors declined to comment on what type of trafficking was involved or whether the final destination was the United States, where there has been a surge in the number of Indians crossing the Mexico-U.S. border this year.
The 15 crew members of the Legend Airlines charter flight – an unmarked A340 plane en route from Fujairah airport in the United Arab Emirates to Managua, Nicaragua – were questioned and released, according to a lawyer for the Romania-based airline.
According to an official from the Marne administration, the passengers initially remained on the plane and were surrounded by police on the tarmac, but were then taken to the main hall of the airport to sleep.
Legend Airlines lawyer Liliana Bakayoko said the company was cooperating with French authorities and denied any involvement in possible human trafficking. She said the airline “did not commit any violation.”
A “partner” company that chartered the plane was responsible for verifying each passenger's identification documents and providing the airline with their passport information 48 hours before the flight, Bakayoko told The Associated Press.
The airline maintains that it “did not commit any violation.” AP
The customer had chartered several flights with Legend Airlines from Dubai to Nicaragua and several other flights had already completed the journey without incident, she said. She did not want to name the customer and only said that it was not a European company.
The U.S. government has classified Nicaragua as one of several countries that do not meet minimum standards to combat human trafficking.
Nicaragua has also been used as a migration springboard for people fleeing poverty or conflict in the Caribbean or far-flung countries in Africa or Asia due to relaxed or visa-free entry requirements for some countries. Charter flights are sometimes used to get there. From there, the migrants travel north on buses with the help of smugglers.
According to Mexican immigration officials, the flow of Indian migrants through Mexico rose from fewer than 3,000 in 2022 to more than 11,000 from January to November this year. In the US government's fiscal year ended September 30, Indian citizens were arrested 41,770 times while entering the US from Mexico illegally, more than double the 18,308 the previous year.
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