ZAGREB, February 25, 2019 - The number of people on trial as migrant smugglers in Croatia is many times higher than in previous years, especially at the Karlovac Municipal Court, which received 229 such indictments in 2018 and about 50 this year.
In each case one or more persons are on trial for taking money to transport foreign citizens through Croatia and enable them to illegally enter another European Union member state.
Karlovac Municipal Court judge and spokeswoman Blaženka Lugar Vidović has told Hina that those people were tried under the Penal Code article on illegal entry, movement and stay in Croatia or another EU country.
The pressure on the court is high because the cases are urgent and concern people from Albania, Ukraine, Turkey, Iran, and Iraq, sometimes from Serbia and Bosnia and Herzegovina, and very rarely from Croatia, she said.
Sixty-eight sentences have been delivered. All arrestees were given a court-appointed attorney, but afterwards many chose their own.
Migrant smuggling is punishable with one to eight years in prison. Some smugglers have been given five years. However, a sentence can be as high as 12 years if smugglers endangered migrants' lives and health, for example by transporting them in trucks with not enough air.
Lugar Vidović said those sentenced to prison were deprived of the trucks, vans and mobile phones they used in the commission of the crimes to send "a message of general prevention" and that it seemed to work.
Asked about the smugglers' profile, she said they included people doing it for the first time, out of necessity, to pay off loans as well as professionals who admitted to having been arrested in other countries. She said one smuggler said he had done it only so he could buy his fiancee an engagement ring.
She said that was why the sentences varied after all mitigating and aggravating circumstances were considered. The minimum sentence is one year in prison, those who were extremely brazen get five and those who also endangered the lives and health of others may be given the maximum 12 years in prison, she said, adding that the latter were tried by a jury, not a judge.
More news about the migrant crisis can be found in the Politics section.
