People smugglers jailed up to 27 years

Deadly transport: Police officers driving away the lorry in which the dead Vietnamese migrants were found in this file picture. — AFP

A BRITISH judge handed down sentences of 27 and 20 years to the ringleaders of a people smuggling plot that led to the death of 39 Vietnamese migrants in horrific conditions in the back of a lorry.

The 39 – the youngest of whom were two 15-year-old boys – suffocated in the container as they were being transported to what they had hoped would be new lives in Britain.