Hungarian police detain 5th suspect over deaths of 71 refugees on A4 motorway

Xinhua

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Hungarian police have detained a fifth suspect in the deaths of 71 refugees who apparently suffocated in a closed Hungarian-owned truck on an Austrian motorway south of Vienna, the National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) announced on Sunday.

The suspect, a Bulgarian national, was detained on Saturday night, the NBI reported on its website, but did not say where the male suspect had been apprehended.

Earlier on Saturday, the district court of Kecskemet, a city southeast of Budapest, ordered the formal arrest of four other suspects, three Bulgarians (aged 29,30, and 50) and one Afghanistani (aged 27), apprehended on Thursday following the discovery of the bodies. The court ruled that the four are to be remanded in custody for 30 days before the decision is revisited.

Under Hungarian law human smuggling may be punished by up to 8 years of imprisonment, a sentence which can be doubled if committed as part of organized crime. Enditem