The correctional court of Nador handed down today 11 months of prison time to 33 sub-Saharan migrants involved in the deadly Nador-Melilla border crossing.
This first group of detained migrants is accused of “violence against law enforcement officers” and “illegal access to Moroccan territory,” while the rest of the 65 arrested individuals await trial.
On Monday, the defendants rejected the Prosecutor’s charges against them, except for having entered Morocco illegally.
They denied the other charges, which are “facilitating and organizing the entry and exit of foreigners in a clandestine manner from and to Morocco”, “armed agglomeration on public roads” and “insulting public officials,” among others.
These people, most of them Sudanese, were arrested during the mass migration attempt at the Melilla enclave’s border fence with Nador on June 24, which resulted in 23 migrant fatalities, in addition to multiple injuries, among 140 Moroccan officers and 77 migrants.
Another 32 migrants arrested during the attempt to cross into Melilla are being tried for more serious crimes than those in this group, and their trial is scheduled to take place on June 27.
These 32 people are prosecuted before the Court of Appeal of Nador for facilitating the entry and exit of people from Morocco “on a regular basis,” which elevates the crime to the category of human trafficking.
They are also accused of kidnapping and holding public forces officers hostage, setting a fire in the forest where the migrants were living, and insulting and using violence against law enforcement officers.
The migrants maintain their refugee status and are pleading for their provisional release, but the judge rejected this request and kept them all in detention while awaiting trial.
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