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Friday, October 01, 2010 - 6.15 GMT |
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Canadian Police to lay human smuggling
charges against Sun Sea |
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The Canadian Police (RCMP) is preparing to lay criminal charges of human smuggling against a man they say is an owner of the MV Sun Sea.
Weeks later, the barely seaworthy boat sailed across the Pacific Ocean with 492 Tamil migrants onboard. Since the vessel’s arrival at CFB Esquimalt on Aug 13, Canadian authorities have scrambled to distinguish human smugglers from asylum seekers, reported Globe and Mail in an article published on September 30th.
Phil Ranken, a high-profile criminal defence lawyer in Vancouver, said he will represent the alleged owner in the event criminal charges are filed.
Constable Michael McLaughlin of the RCMP said they have yet to forward any charges to the Public Prosecution Service of Canada and declined to either confirm or deny that human-smuggling charges are in the works, the report further said.
“We are looking into more than one possible charge, I will say that,” Constable McLaughlin said. “I would certainly expect this will be months rather than days for forwarding charges,” he added.
If laid, the human-smuggling charges would be the first levelled in any of the cases of mass-migrant ships that have arrived in B.C. since 1999.
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