PHILIPSBURG--Making a profit by transporting poor Haitian immigrants in rickety boats and assisting them in gaining illegal entry into their country of destination is a severe crime, but what to do with three Haitians involved in a case of family reunion?
Judge Monique Keppels of the Court of First Instance was confronted with this question in a case involving three men of Haitian descent who stood trial on people-smuggling charges on Wednesday.
The main suspect in this case, B.F. (46), is accused of having assisted in four minor children to gain illegal entry into St. Maarten between June 26 and October 17, 2010, by using falsified proof of accommodation documents, or attestations d'h�bergement, as they are called in French.
Two of these children, ages 10 and 12, were born to co-defendants E.P. (38) and J.P. (42) who, according to the Prosecutor's Office, had assisted in the crime by paying part of their offspring's airfare to St. Maarten and providing their passports and passport photos.
B.F. was the most outspoken of the three defendants in describing the reasons for their actions. Following the catastrophic earthquake of January 12, 2010, that devastated Haiti, killing around 300,000 people and leaving more than 1.5 million without homes, the two girls, who he claimed were related to him, had become homeless.
"The children were starving and were living on the street. I felt obligated to do something for these children," B.F. told the Judge, adding that the girls' mothers had approached him to find the children and deliver them to their mothers.
He claimed he had only assisted because efforts to obtain visas for the two girls in Haiti had been unsuccessful.
This was not the first time B.F. had taken children from Haiti to St. Maarten. He had accompanied two other children to St. Maarten earlier last year. That time he had not encountered any problems with Immigration officials at Princess Juliana International Airport.
Prosecutor Dounia Benammar held it against the three men that they had not sought the assistance of the authorities in St. Maarten in unifying their families.
However, E.P. and J.P. claimed they had had no knowledge that the documents provided by B.F. had been false.
B.F. told the Court he had bought the documents for US $50 each from a man in the streets, but maintained he had had no doubt about the papers' authenticity. "I would not have done it had I known the documents were false," he said.
The Prosecutor requested that the Court sentence B.F. to 18 months, six of which were to be suspended, with three years' probation. In case of conviction, she also requested the man's immediate incarceration and the revocation of his residence permit.
According to the Prosecutor, B.F. had not acted on humanitarian grounds, but had been working for payment and for profit.
Prosecutor Benammar did not deny that the situation in Haiti was grave, but said B.F.'s appeal of a "case of emergency" did not work because he had misused other people's misery in making a profit. "In bringing these children here he also contributed to illegal immigration," she added.
She said the other two suspects had induced and contributed to the crime. "They did not make any efforts with the St. Maarten authorities to get their children here via the proper channels," Benammar said.
The children are still in St. Maarten with their families. The Minister of Justice will decide on their fate, the Prosecutor explained.
Attorney-at-law Geert Hatzmann stated that B.F., who is seriously ill, had been punished enough already by his three-month pre-trial detention during which he witnessed the traumatic suicide of a cellmate.
His clients were not aware of the ins and outs of family reunification and had become the victims of "ignorance" within the Naturalisation and Immigration Service (IND), said attorney Remco Stomp. "They acted in despair and should either be acquitted or be discharged from prosecution," Stomp said.
The judge will give her decision on February 8.
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