The system was very hierarchical.

Drawing.

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Sierakowski / Isopix / Sipa

For Me Jocelyn Momasso Momasso, one of the defense lawyers, “this is a judgment of excessive media severity.

The court wanted to give exemplary sanctions while the file was far from being.

»Sentences of up to eight years of imprisonment and a definitive ban from French territory were pronounced Tuesday in Toulouse against 16 Bulgarian Roma convicted of trafficking in human beings, exploitation of begging on compatriots and money laundering silver.

A seventeenth defendant, the only one to appear free, was sentenced to one year in prison which he can execute under electronic control, lawyers said.

A trial without the civil parties

The criminal court sentenced five defendants to eight years' imprisonment, two to six years, five to five years, one to four years and three to three years.

The prosecution on Monday requested sentences of up to ten years imprisonment.

The peculiarity of this trial is that it was held without civil parties, the 33 beggars victims of this trafficking who benefited from a program of “voluntary return” to Bulgaria.

No confrontation therefore took place between victims and defendants.

"A scandal", "a shame for French justice", had deplored the defense lawyers.

"When it comes to Bulgarian Roma, this right is not necessary?

It bothers me deeply ”, pleaded Me Momasso Momasso.

“It would have been too expensive, we were told, to follow the rules of procedure.

The victims ?

Pfuuu, we made them disappear!

», Added Me Christian Etelin.

Throughout this trial, the defendants tried to convince the court that they were as poor and beggars as the victims in the case.

And that they were in no way part of a human trafficking network.

All from one of the poorest regions of Bulgaria

The Pleven region in northern Bulgaria, where all the protagonists in this case come from, is one of the poorest regions in this poorest country in the European Union.

According to the survey, members of five family clans dangled their victims with work in France or the fair sharing of the earnings of begging.

But once they arrived in the Pink City, they were deprived of their identity papers, forced to beg for long hours without recovering the money collected, malnourished, sometimes beaten and housed in deplorable hygienic conditions.

Justice

Toulouse: A cruel hierarchical system unveiled at the trial of Bulgarian beggars

Justice

Toulouse: Five Bulgarian families at the helm, accused of having turned compatriots into slaves of begging

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