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A dutch A court on Monday began the trial of an Eritrean man accused of involvement in a brutal migrant smuggling network.
Prosecutors say Tevelde Goitom, also known as Amanuel Walid, ran an operation East African to migrants Europe Under appalling conditions, huge sums of money were demanded from their relatives to free them from the camps Libya,
The accused, wearing jeans and a blue puffer jacket, said he was a victim of mistaken identity. He was extradited from the Netherlands in 2022 EthiopiaWhere he was convicted of similar crimes.
Asked to introduce himself through an interpreter, he said, “I’m still what I said before.”
Prosecutors said the trial is one of the largest human trafficking cases ever prosecuted in the Netherlands. This will continue for the next three weeks.
The trial of another man, Kidane Zecharias Habtemariam, who fled while on trial in Ethiopia in 2020, has been delayed due to the lengthy extradition process. Described as one of the ”world’s most wanted” human smugglers, Habtemariam is currently being held in the United Arab Emirates, but will be extradited to the Netherlands.
Prosecutors want to join both cases, while the defense hopes Habtemariam can provide evidence of Goitom’s innocence.
Dutch prosecutors say they have jurisdiction to prosecute him because some of his alleged crimes took place in the Netherlands. They say relatives of migrants seeking to make the dangerous journey from East Africa to Libya and across the Mediterranean Sea to Europe were subjected to extortion by smugglers.
Defense lawyers oppose this. Simcha Plas argued, “There is no obvious connection to the Netherlands,” adding that the payments were made in Eritrea or through the United Arab Emirates, and the country lacks jurisdiction.
The Netherlands has seen a surge in young Eritrean migrants fleeing the repressive government in recent years, according to refugee aid group VluchtelingenWerk. The country has mandatory national service, and according to a recent United Nations investigation, conscripts experience excruciating sexual violence and forced labor.
The Dutch Statistics Office estimates that there are approximately 28,000 people of Eritrean origin living in the Netherlands.
Since gaining independence from Ethiopia three decades ago, the small Horn of Africa nation is led by President Isaias Afwerki, who has never held elections.
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Follow AP’s global migration coverage at https://apnews.com/hub/migration