Off the wire
• Urgent: Crude prices gain amid weak U.S. dollar  • Kenya club eyes continental women's volleyball crown  • Feature: Banks still preferred for Kenyans seeking loans despite high rates  • LME base metals rise mostly on Monday  • Spain receives 3.3 mln int'l tourists in Feb.  • 1st LD Writethru: Gold rises on weak dollar  • Liberia says recent Ebola patient in stable condition  • German benchmark DAX index lost 1.19 pct on Monday  • Interview: Chinese investment in U.S. to remain bullish, says SelectUSA chief  • ECB foreign exchange rates of Euro to other currencies  
You are here: 　 Home

2 Iraqi nationals convicted of smuggling Iraqis into Finland

Xinhua, March 24, 2015 Adjust font size:

Two Iraqi nationals have been sentenced by a court in Helsinki for smuggling their compatriots into Finland, local media reported on Monday. The convicted persons were both residents in neighboring Sweden.

The condemned men were given respective sentences of one year and seven months and one year and five months in prison. Both denied the charges.

The two were accused of offering assistance to six Iraqis to travel from Italy to Sweden and onwards to Finland for a price of over a thousand euros. The convicted smugglers and their clients boarded a ship from Stockholm to the southwestern Finnish port of Turku last December.

Two illegal entrants actually showed up at a police station in Turku to apply for asylum.

Both Finland and Sweden are within the Schengen area and no actual identity control is applied at the border, but entering Finland is illegal if the person has no legal entry record into the Schengen area. Endit