French Councilor Held For Smuggling Migrants
Taiwan News, October 9, 2009
http://www.etaiwannews.com/etn/news_content.php?id=1078297&lang=eng_news
Britain's immigration authority has charged a French town councilor and her son with smuggling migrants into Britain.
The U.K. Border Agency said Friday that 51-year old Christiane Chocat and 20-year-old Benjamin Chocat were charged with facilitating unlawful entry into a European country.
Christiane Chocat is a town councilor in Lumigny-Nesles-Ormeaux, a region outside Paris.
They were charged after British police discovered 16 Vietnamese nationals hidden in a van packed with shrimp noodles that disembarked from a ferry Thursday in Portsmouth, on England's south coast.
The ferry sailed from Cherbourg in northern France. The Vietnamese were returned to France.
The Chocats are to appear in Portsmouth Magistrates Court on Saturday.
