Donkey plane row: The plane landed in Mumbai on Tuesday.
New Delhi:
Lawyers for the airline whose plane was grounded in France after it was used for a “donkey flight” said most of the passengers had booked hotels and had round-trip tickets from Nicaragua, which was a destination for the company. he claimed. Officials said 299 of the 303 passengers on board were Indian nationals, and the plane was grounded after receiving reports that the passengers were likely victims of human trafficking.
Officials told AFP news agency that the plane may have ties to a criminal organization trying to smuggle individuals into the United States. The Central American country of Nicaragua has seen a marked increase in the number of Indians attempting to enter the United States illegally.
Liliana Bakayoko, a lawyer for Romania-based Legend Airlines, told NDTV exclusively on Tuesday: “I am the company’s lawyer. My colleagues who defended the passengers before the judge defended them to the media. “All passengers have returned home,” he said. ”
When pointed out that, according to available information, only 12 of the 303 passengers had round-trip tickets, Bakayoko said, “That company’s planes are not equipped to conduct such flights.” According to my colleague in France, almost all of the passengers they represented had round-trip tickets and hotel reservations. It is true that only three passengers were questioned by the authorities.
“Special circumstances”
Regarding the sequence of events after the plane landed in Vatry, France, for refueling on Friday, Bakayoko said the airline’s crew was ordered to leave the airport, go to a hotel and wait to be called as witnesses. He said the situation was She said she was wondering what to do because it meant leaving passengers behind and the captain had a duty to the people on the plane.
She said the crew got a call two hours later, but they didn’t know exactly what was going on and were very scared.
“I just advised them to go and tell everything they knew. So they all went there and the interrogation took place. It took hours and everyone was left free. But… “We didn’t know what to do because the plane was occupied.” “It was as expected. All passengers were asked to remain at the airport. The plane was then released, but the passengers were still detained. “We decided to wait and see what happened to the passengers,” the lawyer said.
Public hearing at the airport
Bakayoko said the hearing was held at the airport. The judges and their lawyers visited the site to hear the opinions of the passengers, and after three hearings they declared the process irregular.
“Under French law, if the police detain someone, they have to get an interpreter if they don’t speak French, a lawyer and inform them of their rights. And there were no interpreters. There were two interpreters; “One of the passengers departed for personal reasons, so local authorities took too long to inform the passengers of their rights because there was no interpreter available,” the lawyer said.
“So the judge found that the process was irregular because people were actually staying inside the airport for hours, in some cases as long as 11 hours, without any knowledge of what was going on and without any explanation or understanding. And no one explained, “Actually, even in French.” These people were scared, so the judge ruled that the detention was irregular. “The French authorities decided to send everyone home,” she added.
The lawyer said another problem arose because some of the passengers did not want to go to India, where the plane landed on Tuesday.
“India was a country ready to accept passengers immediately. The United Arab Emirates refused. As far as we know, Nicaragua also (refused). So, since the passengers were Indian citizens, the Indian embassy “The French authorities asked us to speed up the process of obtaining all the necessary permits to fly to India. Some refused to travel… In the end, 276 people of passengers were on board to fly to India, while the remaining passengers applied for asylum,” she explained.
Who was the client?
Bakayoko said clients chartering flights from Dubai to Nicaragua are responsible for verifying passengers’ passports, tickets and visas. She said her client is a foreign company outside Europe, but declined to disclose her identity.
When asked if other flights to Nicaragua were also chartered by the same customer, she answered in the affirmative, but said there was no data available to know how many Indians were on board that flight. He said he didn’t have it on hand.
“Donkey flights” refer to the means by which some migrants transit through third countries with lax travel documentation requirements to reach their final destinations.
