UK police charge another man over Vietnamese truck deaths

LONDON: British police said on Monday they had charged another man as part of their investigation into the deaths of 39 Vietnamese migrants found dead in the back of a truck near London last year.

Valentin Calota, 37, will appear at Basildon Magistrates’ Court near London on Monday charged with facilitating illegal immigration between May 2018 and Oct 2019.

The victims, who included two 15-year-old boys, were discovered in October in the truck container on an industrial estate in Grays in Essex, about 20 miles (32 km) east of London.

Autopsies concluded that the provisional cause of death was a combination of hypoxia – oxygen deprivation – and hyperthermia – overheating – in an enclosed space.

Most of the victims in the UK truck tragedy are thought to come from central Vietnam, where easy-to-find brokers help to arrange trips to Europe — often via Russia — for migrants hoping to earn money overseas.

The 25-year-old Northern Irish driver of the refrigerated lorry has been charged with manslaughter, money laundering and conspiracy to assist unlawful immigration.

For years, illegal immigrants have attempted to reach Britain stowed away in trucks, often from the European mainland. In 2000, 58 Chinese were found dead in a tomato truck at the port of Dover.