Harem Ahmed Abwbaker, 32, was arrested in Cheltenham, Gloucestershire, on Tuesday morning by National Crime Agency (NCA) officers acting on behalf of French police, who intend to charge him with involuntary homicide and facilitating illegal immigration.
NCA officers handed Abwbaker over to the National Extradition Unit and he will appear at Westminster Magistrates Court in London on Wednesday for the start of extradition proceedings.
The Royal Navy and the UK Border Force are carrying out Operation Isotrope, an initiative to intercept small boats in the Channel and escort illegal immigrants safely to shore.
Since the operation was launched in January 2022, not a single immigrant has died at sea.
But on Nov. 24, 2021 a large dinghy sank in the Channel and the bodies of 27 immigrants were recovered from the water or washed up on the French coast.
Two people survived and the bodies of four or five immigrants have not been recovered.
At the time the French interior minister, Gerald Darmanin, said the survivors—one Somali and one Iraqi—were being treated in hospital for severe hypothermia.
The MAIB said: “The investigation has established that, during the evening of Nov. 23, 2021, about 34 migrants left a beach near Dunkirk, France on board a small infatable boat to proceed to the UK. During the passage, the migrants got into difficulties and entered the sea.”
A French fishing vessel raised the alarm in the early hours of Nov. 24, 2021.
In December 2021 the Paris prosecutor said 16 of those who died were Iraqi Kurds, four were Afghans, and there were also three Ethiopians, a Somalian woman, an Egyptian, and an Iranian.
The ages of the dead ranged from 7 to 45 and included seven women.
Amanullah Omakhil, 18, told AFP that one of the dead had been his cousin Hussein, 24, who had travelled overland from Afghanistan.
Omakhil told AFP: “It was his choice. He was older than me, I couldn’t tell him ‘Don’t do this, don’t do that.'”
Abwbaker was identified by the Paris prosecutor as the people smuggler behind the boat and he was tracked down by the NCA.
The NCA’s Deputy Director, Craig Turner, said: “This is a significant arrest, and comes as part of extensive inquiries into the events leading to these tragic deaths in the Channel. The individual detained today is suspected of having played a key role in the manslaughter of those who died.”
He said, “Working closely with our French partners we are determined to do all we can to get justice for the families of those whose lives were lost, and disrupt and dismantle the cruel organised criminal networks involved in people smuggling.”
The Home Secretary, Suella Braverman, said, “My thoughts continue to be with the families of all of those who tragically lost their lives in this horrendous incident.”
She thanked the NCA and other law enforcement agencies for their “tireless work to deliver justice for the victims and their families.”
In its interim report the MAIB said it was initially believed the dinghy had sunk in French waters because that was where the bodies and the survivors were located.
But it said that in January 2022 the Chief Inspector of Marine Accidents, Andrew Moll, started an investigation, “when it became evident that some of the events relating to this loss of life had occurred inside UK waters.”
The MAIB said the scope of its investigation “has focused on the UK search and rescue response at the time; the MAIB is not investigating the reasons why the voyage was being attempted nor the conduct of the voyage itself.”
The MAIB said the Maritime Rescue Coordination Centre (MRCC) in Dover received a number of phone calls from illegal immigrants as the boat started sinking.
MRCC staff “dispatched UK surface and air assets to search the area where the distressed migrants were assessed to be. However, nothing was found until the report from the French fishing vessel later on Nov. 24, 2021.”
