Nigerians jailed for people smuggling

Thursday 03 December 2009

A court in Zwolle has jailed a gang of Nigerian nationals for smuggling over around 140 girls into the Netherlands but found them not guilty of the more serious charge of human trafficking.

The gang was arrested in October 2007 following an investigation into the disappearance of young girls from asylum seekers centres in the Netherlands.

The two main suspects and four others were jailed for between six months and four and a half years. Three were found not guilty.

About a dozen of the girls were traced, while the rest were thought to have been forced into prostitution in Italy, Spain and France. Most were minors at the time, their ages ranging from 16 to 23, news agency AFP said.

'The suspects used voodoo to influence the girls,' AFP quoted a prosecution department statement as saying. 'They had to give blood, nails or a piece of clothing and make a promise to a voodoo priest to repay the 'debts' incurred for their travel to Europe" -- between €30,000 and €60,000.

According to the NRC judges were critical of the interrogation methods used by the police, which involved an African cleric trying to convince the girls that the Christian god was stronger than voodoo.

© DutchNews.nl

Comments have been closed for this article.