On Monday (February 19) a jury in Canterbury, southeast England, found Ibrahima Bah guilty of causing the deaths of four people in December 2022. The conviction followed a previous trial in July 2023 in which the jury was unable to reach a verdict. Bah has been held in custody for fourteen months.

The homemade inflatable boat was carrying about 43 people on the night of December 14, 2022, when it began to take in water, the court on Monday heard. It ripped apart before all the passengers could be saved by a nearby fishing boat. The total number of deaths is still unclear, but four men are known to have drowned.

One of the victims was named as Allaji Ibrahima Ba, an 18-year-old from Guinea who had traveled with Ibrahima from Libya and whom Ibrahima referred to as his brother. The two others who were identified were Hajratullah Ahmadi from Afghanistan and Moussa Conate, a 15-year-old from Guinea.

According to the prosecutor, Duncan Atkinson, Bah had steered the migrant boat in return for a free passage, and had owed a "duty of care" to the others on board. Everyone else on board had paid thousands of euros to make the journey, a Crown Prosecution Service statement said.

But Bah was not trained or licensed to skipper the dangerous and poorly-equipped vessel, which was carrying insufficient life jackets and had no flares or radio on board, Atkinson added.

"He was aware that the boat was overcrowded, lacking in safety equipment and, as it took in water, that it was increasingly unseaworthy."

The court heard that several migrants had described water reaching their knees within 30 minutes of leaving the French coast. 

"Despite these increasing and obvious problems, the defendant continued to head into UK waters," Atkinson said.

Ibrahima helped us, survivors tell court

The court, including the prosecution, agreed that the shipwreck had been the result of multiple factors, such as the poor construction of the boat and the fact that a lot of people stood up to be rescued, causing it to break apart. These were among the key findings of an investigation into the event surrounding the shipwreck by migrant support groups Alarm Phone and LIMINAL in December 2023.

Bah said he had wanted to pull out when he first saw the inflatable on the beach because it was too small for the number of passengers. But the people smugglers beat him up and threatened to kill him if he refused.

Several survivors who gave evidence said they would have died if it had not been for Bah. When the dinghy got into danger, he had steered it towards the fishing boat, 'Arcturus', which rescued 39 of the migrants, with help from the lifeboat service, air ambulance and the UK Border Force, and brought them ashore in the southern English port of Dover.

Ibrahima "was an angel," one survivor reportedly told the court, while another man interviewed by the BBC said: "I didn't know whether [the driver] was a smuggler, refugee or asylum seeker -- but he helped us and saved us.

"He was speeding the boat to get closer to the fishing boat and also turned and swerved the boat in a way that helped us."

Conviction a first for the UK

Bah’s conviction on charges of manslaughter and facilitating a breach of immigration law represents the first time a migrant who piloted a boat to the UK has been found responsible for causing harm to other passengers.

Prosecution of alleged boat drivers for causing deaths of fellow migrants is common in Greece, where one man known as M.H., convicted of smuggling, was initially sentenced to 142 years imprisonment. He was subsequently released, but human rights groups have continued to bring attention to similar cases, such as the Samos 2 and the Paros 3.

The UK government has made it a criminal offense to arrive in the country without a visa or valid documents. This means it is impossible legally to travel to the UK to seek asylum, despite this being a universal human right.

Daniel Sohege, director of a human rights advocacy group Stand for All, wrote on X: "Ibrahima is likely just the first. This is the criminalization of asylum."

Captain Support UK, a group campaigning against the criminalization of migrants charged with "smuggling" or "facilitating illegal immigration", responded to the conviction of Bah, saying it reflected "a violent escalation in the persecution of migrants to 'Stop the Boats'."

In a news release, the group also said racial profiling had played a part in the case.

Bah is due to be sentenced on February 23. His supporters plan to protest in London and Canterbury, where the sentencing hearing is to take place.

With dpa, AP