A motorcyclist was killed and at least seven people were injured in accidents on a French motorway yesterday after police opened fire on a British-registered car containing suspected people smugglers.
The suspects, who all claimed to be Iraqi, lost control of the Audi near Dunkirk after being hit by bullets fired by Belgian officers during a high-speed chase across two countries.
The car ploughed into other vehicles, forcing rescue workers to close the A16 motorway for at least two hours. As traffic ground to a halt, a Dutch motorcyclist slammed into the back of a lorry and was killed instantly.
There was friction between Paris and Brussels amid claims that Belgian officers had shot at the suspects on the French side of the border, which is illegal, according to French officials.
The Belgian officers were questioned by their French counterparts before being released without charge. Belgian officials insisted that the shots had been fired on Belgian soil and that the officers had not broken any laws.
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The incident began at about 5am when lorry drivers spotted migrants climbing into the backs of their vehicles at Jabbeke motorway service station in Belgium. The drivers alerted police, saying that people smugglers had threatened them with knives when they tried to intervene.
Belgian officers arrived on the scene to find dozens of migrants crowded in lorries, and the four suspected people smugglers fled in their car.
The officers gave chase, at one point driving alongside the suspects at about 200kph (124mph). The Audi veered sideways in an attempt to knock the police car off the road. Officers responded by firing at least 15 bullets, hitting two people sitting in the rear of the car. One was shot in the shoulder and the other in the abdomen.
Police said that as the driver lost control the Audi struck a car that had pulled up on the hard shoulder by the Dunkirk slip road, and then hit a lorry. Four other vehicles crashed into the wreckage.
Four people were taken by helicopter to Lille hospital with serious injuries, including the two suspects with bullet wounds. At least one was in a critical condition last night. Three other people sustained minor injuries.
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A police source said that the four suspected traffickers had been arrested. One has a criminal record in France.
Dunkirk camp is home to an estimated 1,100 migrants who are targeted by an Iraqi Kurd people-smuggling network that charges thousands of pounds for help crossing the Channel. A further 3,500 or so migrants are in the Jungle, the makeshift migrant camp in Calais.
The traffickers often take migrants to other French ports because security has been tightened at Calais and Dunkirk, or to Zeebrugge in Belgium.
The fee they charge for helping to break into lorries is about €4,000 (£3,000) but it can be much higher if the driver is in the gang’s pay. The networks mostly have branches in the UK as well as in France and Iraq, according to French police. The smugglers generally use British-registered vehicles.
In a separate case, three Iraqi Kurdish men and two French men are due to go on trial in Dunkirk today on charges of aiding and abetting illegal immigration. The suspects, who are alleged to have charged up to €10,000 per migrant, face a maximum prison sentence of ten years.