UK Truck Deaths Case: Two More Arrests As Probe by Police Expands

The driver of the vehicle, a 25-year-old man has been arrested on suspicion of attempted murder.

Police forensic officers attend the scene after a truck was found to contain a large number of dead bodies, in South England.

(Photo: PTI)

British police have expanded an investigation into one of the country's deadliest cases of human smuggling, after 39 people were found dead in a refrigerated container truck near an English port, on Wednesday, 23 October.

On Friday, 25 October, the British police said that they have arrested two more people in connection with the 39 dead bodies found in a truck.

A man and a woman, both aged 38 and from Warrington in northwest England, were arrested on suspicion of manslaughter and conspiracy to traffic people, they said, reported AFP.

According to the Essex police, the victims were believed to be from China, Associated Press reported. However, the Chinese embassy has said that the nationalities of the 39 were still being verified.

Of the 39, eight were women, while the remaining 31 were men. They had been found dead in a truck container, on Wednesday, at an industrial park in Grays, a town 40 kilometers east of London.

The driver of the vehicle, a 25-year-old man from the Northern Ireland has been arrested on suspicion of attempted murder, though he has not been charged yet, the report said. Detectives have been granted another 24 hours to question the man, whose name has so far not been released.

As the investigation continues, the police in Northern Ireland have conducted searches at three properties.

Identities of Victims Still Being Verified

Pippa Mills, deputy chief of Essex Police said that the process of conducting post-mortem examinations and identifying the victims would be "lengthy and complex”, according to the Associated Press.

“This is an incredibly sensitive and high-profile investigation, and we are working swiftly to gather as full a picture as possible as to how these people lost their lives.”

Pippa Mills, Deputy Chief of Essex Police

While the Essex police had said that the victims were believed to be from China, the country’s embassy in London said in a statement on its website, on Friday, that the verification of the identities of the 39 was still underway and their nationalities had not yet been confirmed.

Piecing the Incident Together

According to the police, the truck and the container in which the bodies were found could have ended up at the industrial park separately, from different origins. They believe that the container traveled by ferry from the Belgian port of Zeebrugge to Purfleet, England, where it arrived early on Wednesday. It was then picked up by the truck driver and driven to Grays, Associated Press reported, quoting police.

The truck cab, meanwhile is registered in Bulgaria to a company owned by an Irish woman. Police believe that it traveled from Northern Ireland to Dublin, where it caught a ferry to Wales and then drove across Britain to pick up the container, the report said.

Global Trailer Rentals Ltd, the company which owns the trailer told Ireland's national broadcaster RTE that it had been leased on 15 October in County Monaghan, Ireland, at a rate of 275 euros per week.

The company, which Dublin-based company will be handing over the data from its tracking system to investigators.

The company's directors have reacted to the incident, saying that it was "shell-shocked" and that it was it was "entirely unaware that the trailer was to be used in the manner in which it appears to have been”, Associated Press reported, quoting RTE.

Belgian authorities said they had not made much progress in understanding how the container ended up in Zeebrugge.

“Up till now, we have a lot of questions and not a lot of answers. We don’t even know which road was followed by the truck in Belgium.”

Eric Van Duyse, spokesman for the Belgian prosecutor’s office

"We don't know how much time it stayed in Belgian territory. We don't know if it stopped or not,” Duyse added, according to Associated Press.

Similar Incidents In The Past

Migrant groups repeatedly land on English shores using small boats to make the risky Channel crossing. Sometimes, they are found in the back of cars and trucks that disembark from the ferries that link France and England, Associated Press reported.

The tragedy brings back memories of an incident from 2000, when 58 Chinese migrants suffocated in a truck in Dover, England, after a month-long journey from China's southern Fujian province. They were found in a container with a cargo of tomatoes after a ferry ride from Zeebrugge, according to the report. This is the same port that features in this incident.

‘Appalled by the Incident’: Boris Johnson

British Prime Minister Boris Johnson vowed on Wednesday that people smugglers will be prosecuted to the full extent of the law.

He also pledged to work closely with Essex Police to establish exactly what happened.

“My thoughts are with all those who lost their lives and their loved ones,” he wrote on Twitter.

(With inputs from AFP, AP)