Paris: The departure of a Romanian aircraft carrying nearly 300 passengers, mostly Indians, to Mumbai was delayed Monday as some of them did not want to return to their country of origin, media reports said Monday, three days after being grounded by the French authorities at an airport near Paris over suspected “human trafficking.”
The situation was, for a time, confusing, according to Me Liliana Bakayoko, lawyer for the Romanian airline Legend Airlines.
Speaking to BFMTV, she said that some passengers did not want to return to their country of origin and that they had refused to board the plane initially this Monday morning.
“Some of the passengers would be unhappy with this return because they wanted to continue their journey to Nicaragua as planned,” the French news broadcast television and radio network reported.
According to the ‘Le Monde’ newspaper, the local prefecture, or official in charge, “confirmed” that the plane would indeed take off “but not before noon” local time.
Two passengers are not authorised to leave, and may face charges, the newspaper said.
The Nicaragua-bound charter flight that took off from Dubai in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) carrying 303 passengers was grounded at the Vatry airport, 150 km east of Paris, Thursday over suspected “human trafficking”.
Sunday, the French authorities allowed the A340 aircraft, operated by Romanian company Legend Airlines, to resume its journey.
“We are very relieved. We were impatiently waiting for this,” the lawyer for the airline, Liliana Bakayoko, was quoted as saying by the channel.
All the passengers who are not in police custody and who have not applied for asylum are expected to leave, the channel reported. According to some reports, nearly four dozen passengers have filed asylum applications.
The lawyer added that the company will continue to be “available to investigators”, and “will seek damages from its client because it has suffered significant harm”.
Sunday, the airport was turned into a makeshift courtroom and four French judges questioned the detained passengers. The hearings were conducted as part of the investigation opened by the Paris prosecutor’s office on suspicion of human trafficking.
According to the French media, some of the passengers spoke Hindi and others Tamil.
After authorising the plane to leave, the French judges Sunday chose to cancel the hearings of the passengers due to irregularities in the procedure.
The passengers include a 21-month-old child and 11 unaccompanied minors.
The police custody measures for two passengers of the flight were lifted Monday. The two men were taken into custody Friday on suspicion of having played a role in what could be an illegal immigration ring. Their detention was extended Saturday for up to 48 hours.
The Public Prosecutor’s Office specifies that a judicial investigation has been opened for aiding the illegal entry and stay of foreigners in the territory as part of an organised gang and participation in a criminal association.
The airline’s lawyer has denied any involvement in the trafficking.
A “partner” company that chartered the plane was responsible for verifying the identity documents of each passenger, and communicated the passengers’ passport information to the airline 48 hours before the flight, Bakayoko said.
Human trafficking carries a potential sentence of up to 20 years in France. According to the reports, the travel may have been planned by the Indian passengers to reach Central America from where they can attempt to enter the United States or Canada illegally.
But an anonymous tip indicated that passengers were “likely to be victims of human trafficking” in an organised gang.
PTI