The prosecution of Santa Cruz of Tenerife has asked six years in prison for each of the three accused of promoting illegal immigration, being the alleged perpetrators of a canoe in which 69 people of sub-Saharan origin traveled.
The boat left Senegal, where the organizers of the trip stayed at a point that has not been determined and who, together with the defendants, are held responsible for acting in order to obtain economic benefit.
In this way, with their “essential activities” they favored clandestine immigration to Spain, despite the fact that the occupants lacked the necessary administrative entry authorizations and remained in Spain, thereby violating the Immigration Law.
The Public Ministry believes that the three defendants were in charge of carrying out the tasks of navigation, control and piloting of the ship in a coordinated manner, using a GPS orientation device, which they directed in turns.
The journey was dangerous due to the number of people on board, the small size of the ship and the duration of the trip, to which was added that the occupants came to be threatened, according to the letter of the Prosecutor’s Office.
The canoe is described by the Prosecutor’s Office as “absolutely inadequate” to make this trip because it was barely 18 meters long by two meters wide and the boat was powered by two 40-hp outboard motors, one of which broke “putting into clear risk to life, health and physical integrity of the occupants.
In this cayuco they made the journey across the high seas, overloading it with people on a journey that lasted seven or eight days until they arrived in Los Cristianos in the afternoon of 2022.
Due to the extreme harshness of the trip, the lack of foresight when it came to having enough food and water, and the poor conditions of the ship, several occupants arrived with symptoms of hypothermia and dehydration, for which they had to be attended by the toilets.
The three defendants, who will be tried next week, have been in provisional detention since then.
