SMUGGLER IS JAILED

A MEMBER of a people trafficking ring which smuggled up to 20 migrants a night into the UK has been extradited to Belgium to begin a 10-year jail term.

Iraqi Sleman Basak Ahmed, 33, and accomplice Shamel Omer Zorab, 37, sneaked migrants into the UK aboard lorries.

They worked with a Kurdish crime network which trafficked migrants from Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan and Pakistan. Ahmed, from Birmingham, and Zorab, from Salford, were held in January. Zorab has been sentenced to 12 years in jail in Belgium.

Colin Williams, from the National Crime Agency, said the pair were “part of an extensive crime group”. SNEAK burglers stole 240lbs of pears from three trees while physician John Van De Pette and his wife Jenny were asleep at their cottage in Amport, Hants.

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