Walter Finch
A YOUNG Algerian man has been given a two-year suspended sentence for skippering a dinghy that brought five other people to Mallorca illegally.
The boat had no food, no life jackets, no flares and only three petrol cans on board stored dangerously close to the engine for the 38-hour journey in October.
The prosecution said the defendant had acted with ‘complete disregard for the lives of his fellow travellers’, who were each charged €1,500 for the life-threatening journey.
The defendant, who admitted to being part of a people trafficking gang, pleaded guilty to a suspended sentence on the condition that he not return to the Balearic Islands for the next five years.
The dinghy arrived at Cala Mondragó, in Santanyí, at noon on October 26, 2022.
The migrants managed to disembark on the beach, and the skipper gave them instructions not to cooperate with the police.
The accused was arrested on the same day and has been in preventive custody since then.
READ MORE:
- Robbers who stole Rolex watch from elderly man on Mallorca street in Spain are caught by police
- Mallorca’s plans to reduce visitors this summer crashes head first into airline plans to fly 30 million people to the island
