Two Chinese people will face a British court today in connection with the horrific deaths of 58 Chinese illegal immigrants who suffocated in the back of a truck while trying to sneak into Britain.
The Chinese defendants, a man and a woman, face charges of conspiracy to facilitate illegal entry to the United Kingdom. The Dutch driver of the truck, Mr Perry Wacker, has been charged with 58 counts of manslaughter and other offences.
Police said the Chinese man Mr You Yi (38), a chef, and the Chinese woman, Ms Ying Guo (29), an interpreter, were expected to appear in court this morning.
An inquest in the English coastal town of Dover yesterday heard how 60 Chinese stowaways crammed inside a sealed tomato truck screamed in vain for help after their single air vent was closed.
Two men who survived the nightmare trip from the Netherlands are now under police guard. The identities of the dead - 54 men and four women - remain unknown.
Mr Wacker has also been charged with facilitating the illegal entry into Britain of the two survivors of the ill-fated trip, which ended when customs officers at Dover examined the truck. Yesterday coroner's officer Mr Graham Perrin told an inquest in Dover how the immigrants had died.
Over-dressed on a sweltering day and gasping for breath, several had banged on the sides of the trailer with their shoes.
"Some of them took off their shoes and started banging them on the container walls. All of this, sir, proved tragically fruitless," Mr Perrin told the coroner.
"They were now inhaling their own respiratory waste, namely carbon dioxide," he said, adding that death would have occurred between one and five hours after being shut into the airtight metal container.
At his appearance in court in the southern English seaside town of Folkestone yesterday, Mr Wacker, a tall, thick-set man, sat impassively behind a glass screen and spoke only to confirm his name and that he understood the charges. Mr Wacker was ordered to be held in custody for seven days.