Hungary sends smugglers to prison for 71 suffocation deaths

A Hungarian court on Thursday sentenced four human traffickers to 25 years in prison each for their roles in the 2015 case in which 71 migrants suffocated to death in the back of a refrigerated truck found on a highway in Austria.

Defendants charged with involvement in the human smuggling case known as the Parndorf-case listen to the verdict at Kecskemet Court of Justice in Kecskemet, 85 kms southeast of Budapest, Hungary, Thursday, June 14, 2018.  (Sandor Ujvari/MTI via AP)

The principal defendant, an Afghan man, and three Bulgarian accomplices, were found guilty in the southern city of Kecskemet of being part of a criminal organization and committing multiple crimes, including human smuggling and murder. The verdicts can be appealed.

Ten other defendants, mostly Bulgarians, were given prison terms ranging between three and 12 years. Three of the men convicted are fugitives.

In France, meanwhile, President Emmanuel Macron's office confirmed that he will host Italian Premier Giuseppe Conte on Friday amid an escalating dispute between the two countries over migration. The Elysee said that Macron and Conte spoke by phone on Wednesday.

Italy had demanded an apology after the French president accused the new populist Italian government of irresponsible behavior for refusing to allow a rescue ship carrying 629 migrants to dock at an Italian port.

This June 12, 2018 photo released Wednesday, June 13, 2018 by French NGO "SOS Mediterranee" shows migrants waving after being transferred from the Aquarius ship to Italian Coast Guard boats, in the Mediterranean Sea. (Kenny Karpov/SOS Mediterranee via AP)

Macron said he "had not made any comment intended to offend Italy and the Italian people," the statement said.

Conte said the chat with Macron had been "very cordial" and confirmed Friday's meeting in Paris.

Spain on Monday announced it would allow the 629 migrants to dock at the port of Valencia, where they are expected Sunday morning. Bad weather has forced the convoy of ships now carrying them to take a detour after high waves caused some of the exhausted migrants aboard to be seasick.

The migrants are traveling from the central Mediterranean Sea aboard the Aquarius, a rescue vessel operated by aid group SOS Mediterranee, and two boats of the Italian government.

Prime suspect L.S. of Afghanistan attends a court hearing at Kecskemet Court of Justice in Kecskemet, 85 kms southeast of Budapest, Hungary, Thursday, June 14, 2018. (Sandor Ujvari/MTI via AP)

Spanish deputy Prime Minister Carmen Calvo said authorities would examine case by case if the migrants qualify for asylum according to the country's regulations. Calvo said minors and women were a priority, especially those who may have been trafficked or exploited in their attempts to reach Europe.

In the Hungarian case, 59 men, eight women and four children from Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan suffocated in the back of a refrigerated truck with Hungarian license plates. The truck was found abandoned in the emergency lane of the A4 highway near Parndorf, Austria, near the Hungarian border, on Aug. 27, 2015.

The migrants boarded that truck near the village of Morahalom, at Hungary's southern border with Serbia, before heading toward Austria. According to prosecutors, who had requested life sentences for the four main defendants, the 71 victims "suffocated in horrendous conditions three hours after the departure," while still in Hungary.

Prime suspect L.S. of Afghanistan attends a court hearing at Kecskemet Court of Justice in Kecskemet, 85 kms southeast of Budapest, Hungary, Thursday, June 14, 2018. (Sandor Ujvari/MTI via AP)

Some 400,000 migrants and refugees passed through Hungary in 2015 on their way to Germany and other destinations in Western Europe. The migrant flow was diverted and slowed by razor-wire fences that Hungary built on its southern borders late that year by Prime Minister Viktor Orban's government. Orban, who was re-elected to his third consecutive term in April, had based his campaign on his fierce anti-migrant policies.

Orban has welcomed the election of the new, populist government in Italy, which has also pledged to oppose migration and has talked about expelling tens of thousands of migrants from the country.

For his part, Pope Francis has called for a multinational response to illegal migration because the problem often "exceeds the capacities and resources" of individual countries.

This June 12, 2018 photo released Wednesday, June 13, 2018 by French NGO "SOS Mediterranee" shows migrants on the Aquarius ship after being rescued in the Mediterranean Sea. (Kenny Karpov/SOS Mediterranee via AP)

Francis' message to a Vatican-Mexican migration conference on Thursday didn't refer to the France-Italy dispute in his message. But he echoed Italy's longstanding complaint that it has largely been left alone to cope with the hundreds of thousands of migrants who have landed on its Mediterranean shores in recent years.

HANOI, Vietnam (AP) — The unusually harsh death sentence given to a real estate tycoon in Vietnam was a pivotal moment in the decadelong “Blazing Furnace” anti-corruption campaign as the Vietnamese business community wrestled with an uncertain future Friday.

Real estate tycoon Truong My Lan, who was sentenced to death Thursday by a court in Ho Chi Minh city for orchestrating the country’s largest ever financial fraud case, was one of Vietnam's most important businesspeople for years. She has been convicted for fraud amounting to $12.5 billion — nearly 3% of the country’s 2022 GDP — and for illegally controlling a major bank and allowing loans that resulted in losses of $27 billion, state media outlets reported.

Vietnam typically gives death penalties crimes like terrorism or murder and, according to Amnesty International, has among the highest rates of capital punishment worldwide. But a death sentence for a financial crime is rare in the country.

Thursday's sentencing marked a “big turning point” in the ongoing anti-corruption drive in Vietnam, said Nguyen Khac Giang, an analyst at Singapore’s ISEAS-Yusof Ishak Institute.

“It signals that the party's commitment to a crackdown on corruption has … expanded," he said.

The Communist Party's so-called Blazing Furnace campaign began in 2013, but it wasn’t until 2018 that authorities began scanning the private sector. Since then, several owners of Vietnam's fast-growing businesses have been arrested. The trial for Trinh Van Quyet — the former chair of the real estate company FLC, which also owns Vietnam's third-largest airline, Bamboo Airways — will likely be heard next. He was arrested in 2022. Giang said Lan’s trial was “an example” for upcoming cases.

The anti-corruption campaign is a hallmark of Communist Party General Secretary Nguyen Phu Trong, Vietnam’s top politician. The 79-year-old ideologue views corruption as a grave threat facing the party and has vowed that the campaign will be a “blazing furnace” where no one is untouchable.

It's making foreign investors jittery while dampening Vietnam’s economic outlook at a time when the country has been positioning itself as the ideal home for businesses looking to shift their supply chains away from China. Vietnam already lost two presidents in a little over a year and the country’s bureaucracy has ground to a halt with terrified officials choosing to do nothing lest they be in the crosshairs.

Lan's death sentence sent “shockwaves” across the Vietnamese business community, creating a “sense of uncertainty” about the future, said Giang.

The real estate sector in particular is floundering. An estimated 1,300 property firms withdrew from the market in 2023 and high-rises lie empty in major cities like Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh. Add to this poor global demand and reduced public investment slowing Vietnam’s economic growth down to 5.05% last year, compared to 8.02% in 2022, according to government data.

Meanwhile, despite the long campaign against graft, public opinion about corruption in Vietnam remains mixed, according to an annual survey built on interviews with nearly 20,000 people known as the Vietnam Provincial Governance and Public Administration Performance Index. It found that, while fewer people were asked for bribes, the number of people who felt the government was serious about fighting corruption had actually dipped in 2023 from the previous year.

Giang said that these were now “uncharted waters” for Vietnam, making it impossible to predict what lay next.

"We haven’t really seen anything like this before,” he said.

Defendants attend a trial for their involvement in a $12.5 billion fraud case in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam on Thursday, April 11, 2024. Businesswoman Truong My Lan may face the death penalty if convicted of allegations that she siphoned off the amount, nearly 3 percent of Vietnam's 2022 GDP, in its largest financial fraud case. (Thanh Tung/ VNExpress via AP).

Business woman Truong My Lan attends a trial in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam on Thursday, April 11, 2024. The real estate tycoon may face the death penalty if convicted of allegations that she siphoned off an amount of $12.5 billion, nearly 3 percent of Vietnam's 2022 GDP, in its largest financial fraud case. (Thanh Tung/VnExpress via AP)

Business woman Truong My Lan, center, attends a trial in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam on Thursday, April 11, 2024. The real estate tycoon may face the death penalty if convicted of allegations that she siphoned off an amount of $12.5 billion, nearly 3 percent of Vietnam's 2022 GDP, in its largest financial fraud case. (Thanh Tung/VnExpress via AP)