A French national was sentenced in a first-instance ruling to four years and six months in prison and ordered to stay outside Hungary for a subsequent period of nine years for attempting to smuggle 24 illegal migrants into Austria last year, the Veszprém County prosecutor’s office said on Monday.
Last October, the man transported 24 migrants, who said they were Syrian citizens and entered Hungary illegally in a sealed van at the Serbian-Hungarian-Romanian border. He was apprehended in Veszprém County, in central Hungary, the prosecutor’s office said.
The man had received 1,500 euros from an unknown client, the prosecutor’s office said.
The accused is launching an appeal.