The Paris Court of Appeal canceled, Thursday, December 28, the release of the twenty-five Indian passengers of the plane immobilized at the end of last week at Vatry airport, in Marne, who had requested political asylum in France, in a decision consulted by Agence France-Presse.
The question of their location now arises, because these Indian nationals have been free to move since Tuesday, even if they were in an irregular situation on French territory. “In the event of an inspection of the persons concerned, the prefectural authority will have the possibility of placing them back in the waiting zone on the basis of these judgments”, for its part specified a judicial source.
“The first judge was wrong to reject the prefectural requests on the grounds that the referral deadline had passed,” wrote the magistrate in her decision. “The deadline to refer the matter to the judge of freedoms and detention expired on December 26, 2023 at 11:59 p.m.; the referral which occurred on December 26, 2023 at 8 a.m. is therefore regular,” she explains. She orders the extension of the detention for eight days in the waiting area of Roissy-Charles-de-Gaulle airport.
On Tuesday, the judge of freedoms and detention canceled their detention in the Zapi (waiting zone for people pending) estimating that “the director of the border police at Roissy-Charles-de-Gaulle airport does not had not entered it within the deadline,” explained the Bobigny public prosecutor’s office on Wednesday.
No “organized gang human trafficking”
The twenty-five passengers were taken to Roissy-Charles de Gaulle airport to apply for political asylum. Among them, five minors were entrusted to the department’s child welfare system and placed.
These people represent only a small part of the 303 passengers who boarded a plane of the Romanian company Legend Airlines in Dubai (United Arab Emirates). They hoped to reach Managua, the capital of Nicaragua, but the stopover for refueling at Vatry airport resulted in the plane being grounded for four days.
An anonymous tip, suggesting human trafficking, led to a long mobilization of the authorities over the Christmas weekend. A temporary waiting area had even been created from scratch in this small airport to confine passengers.
Since then, the two people taken into custody, suspected of being smugglers, have been released by the courts, and the plane was able to take off again on Monday for Bombay, India, with 276 Indian nationals on board. The qualification of “organized gang trafficking in human beings” was ultimately not retained at this stage, because the 303 Indians would have embarked voluntarily.