The convicted are found guilty of leading a gang of human smugglers and are therefore responsible for the deaths of the migrants, according to the Paris court. They are convicted of, among other things, manslaughter.
The boat the migrants were travelling in capsized after an engine failure in August 2023. 60 people were rescued by French and British rescue services. All of the dead were from Afghanistan.
A ninth man was also charged – the captain of the capsized boat. However, the man, himself a migrant from Sudan, was considered by prosecutors to be primarily a victim of the people smugglers and was released.
