Grounded Romanian plane with 275 passengers leaves French airport for India

A Romanian aircraft carrying 275 passengers, mostly Indians, on Monday (December 25) left for India four days after they were detained by the French authorities at an airport near Paris over suspected “human trafficking”.

“The plane, which had been grounded since Thursday, departed shortly after 14.30 pm (local time),” BFM TV, a French news broadcast television and radio network, reported. The Nicaragua-bound charter flight that took off from Dubai in the United Arab Emirates carrying 303 passengers was grounded at the Vatry airport, 150 km east of Paris, on Thursday over suspected “human trafficking”.

On Sunday, the French authorities allowed the A340 aircraft, operated by Romanian company Legend Airlines, to resume its journey. According to the airline’s lawyer, Me Liliana Bakayoko, the plane had 275 passengers on board, 26 of whom are still on French soil, in addition to the two who were brought before a judge on Monday, the channel reported.

Chaos over take off

Earlier, the plane was expected to take off around 10 in the morning. However, the departure of the aircraft was delayed as some of the passengers did not want to return to their country of origin, media reports said. It is reported that the plane will first land in the UAE and then proceed to Mumbai.

The situation was for a while confusing, according to Bakayoko. Speaking to BFM TV, she said that some passengers did not want to return to their country of origin and that they had refused to board the plane initially this Monday morning. “Some of the passengers would be unhappy with this return because they wanted to continue their journey to Nicaragua as planned,” the French news broadcast television and radio network reported.

As per the Le Monde newspaper, two passengers are not authorised to leave and may face charges. “We are very relieved. We were impatiently waiting for this,” the lawyer for the airline, Liliana Bakayoko, was quoted as saying by the channel.

Asylum applications

According to some reports, nearly four dozen passengers had filed asylum applications. The lawyer added that the company will continue to be “available to investigators”, and “will seek damages from its client because it has suffered significant harm”. On Sunday, the airport was turned into a makeshift courtroom and four French judges questioned the detained passengers. The hearings were conducted as part of the investigation opened by the Paris prosecutor’s office on suspicion of human trafficking.

According to the French media, some of the passengers spoke Hindi and others Tamil. After authorising the plane to leave, the French judges on Sunday chose to cancel the hearings of the passengers due to irregularities in the procedure. The passengers include a 21-month-old child and 11 unaccompanied minors. The police custody measures for two passengers of the flight were lifted on Monday. The two men were taken into custody on Friday on suspicion of having played a role in what could be an illegal immigration ring. Their detention was extended on Saturday for up to 48 hours.

Airline denies charges

The Public Prosecutor's Office specifies that a judicial investigation has been opened for aiding the illegal entry and stay of foreigners in the territory as part of an organised gang and participation in a criminal association. The airline’s lawyer has denied any involvement in the trafficking.

A “partner” company that chartered the plane was responsible for verifying the identity documents of each passenger, and communicated the passengers' passport information to the airline 48 hours before the flight, Bakayoko said.

Human trafficking carries a potential sentence of up to 20 years in France. According to the reports, the travel may have been planned by the Indian passengers to reach Central America from where they can attempt to enter the United States or Canada illegally. But an anonymous tip indicated that passengers were “likely to be victims of human trafficking” in an organised gang.

(With agency inputs)