Peering over her glasses, the French judge glanced sternly across the cavernous underground courtroom towards a notorious figure seated in a glass cage.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere will be no more misbehaviour. No more threats. Is that understood?” asked Arabelle Bouts, the lead judge of a Europe-wide people smuggling trial so vast that it has generated 67 tonnes of paperwork.<\/p>\n
\u201cYes,\u201d replied Mirkhan Rasoul, 26, calmly.<\/p>\n
Mr Rasoul, already convicted on prior smuggling charges and serving a separate eight-year sentence for attempted murder, had interrupted proceedings a few days earlier by threatening two of the translators working in the courtroom. Now he was flanked by two armed policemen.<\/p>\n
Standing near the judge, the lead prosecutor, Julie Carros, leant in towards her microphone, glanced down at her notes, and began to set out her final arguments in a sprawling case that involves a total of 33 alleged members of a Kurdish smuggling gang, accused of responsibility for the bulk of migrants crossing the Channel in small boats between 2020 and 2022.<\/p>\n
While Mr Rasoul remained behind a glass screen, approximately 10 other accused sat in the open courtroom surrounded by another 15 armed policemen, who only removed the men\u2019s handcuffs when the court was in session.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is a tentacle-like case… involving merchants of death,\u201d said Ms Carros, describing how the gang had overloaded the small boats, sometimes cramming up to 15 times more people on board than the boats are designed to carry.<\/p>\n