HELSINKI: Court in Helsinki sentenced 2 Iraqi human traffickers for smuggling their compatriots into Finland.
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. 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.
