A Senegalese migrant who piloted an overcrowded “unseaworthy” vessel across the English Channel has been found guilty of the manslaughter of four people who drowned on the trip.
The boat started sinking en route and rescuers were called to save the passengers, the court heard.
Ibrahima Bah was found guilty on four counts of manslaughter and one of facilitating illegal entry to the UK, after a retrial at Canterbury Crown Court.
The home-made, low-quality inflatable on which they sailed should have had no more than 20 people on board but it was packed with at least 43 people, the jury heard.
The majority of travellers paid thousands of euros to smugglers for a spot in the overcrowded vessel, hoping to cross the English Channel and reach the UK, prosecutor Duncan Atkinson KC said.
Bah, though, did not pay for his journey because he agreed to pilot the dingy on December 14 2022. As pilot, he owed his passengers a “duty of care”, Mt Atkinson added.
Mr Atkinson said Bah was not trained or licensed to lead the voyage and there was insufficient safety equipment such as life jackets and no flares or radio on board.
The court heard that when the boat got into trouble a number of migrants inside the vessel described water reaching their knees within 30 minutes of leaving the French coast.
Mr Atkinson said: “He, as the pilot, owed to the passengers of that small and vulnerable boat for their safety during the crossing that he had agreed to make.
“He was aware that the boat was overcrowded, lacking in safety equipment and, as it took in water, that it was increasingly unseaworthy.”
During the trial, asylum seeker Amrullah Ahmadzai described how everyone on the boat was screaming and trying to call for help on their mobile phones, before being rescued by a fishing boat, RNLI boat and Border Force.
He described how the skipper tried to steer the dinghy towards the fishing vessel to help the passengers, and was shouting at everyone to “calm down, I'm going to take you there”.
The court heard from witnesses that before the voyage the group of migrants were transported in three cars to the shoreline, organised by Kurdish agents.
Another traveller, Ghanam Gul Ahmadzai, said the smugglers were “cruel” to the migrants, sometimes beating them.
A total of 39 survivors were brought to shore in Dover but the exact number of migrants who drowned is unknown, Mr Atkinson said.
Three of the four people who died were known only as unknown male persons, while one man was named Hajratullah Ahmadi.
Giving evidence in court, Bah said that smugglers beat him up and threatened to kill him when he refused to pilot the boat.
The defendant told jurors he agreed to pilot the boat before he had seen it, in exchange for free travel for himself and his friend.
The court heard that it was Bah's dream to come to the UK to claim asylum, and he had left Senegal in 2019.
He told police, when he arrived in the UK, that he had travelled from Senegal to Mali, Algeria and then Libya, before going by boat to Italy using smugglers.
Bah will be sentenced at Canterbury Crown Court on Friday February 23.
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Mercer, the investment consulting arm of US services company Marsh & McLennan, expects its wealth division to at least double its assets under management (AUM) in the Middle East as wealth in the region continues to grow despite economic headwinds, a company official said.
Mercer Wealth, which globally has $160 billion in AUM, plans to boost its AUM in the region to $2-$3bn in the next 2-3 years from the present $1bn, said Yasir AbuShaban, a Dubai-based principal with Mercer Wealth.
“Within the next two to three years, we are looking at reaching $2 to $3 billion as a conservative estimate and we do see an opportunity to do so,” said Mr AbuShaban.
Mercer does not directly make investments, but allocates clients’ money they have discretion to, to professional asset managers. They also provide advice to clients.
“We have buying power. We can negotiate on their (client’s) behalf with asset managers to provide them lower fees than they otherwise would have to get on their own,” he added.
Mercer Wealth’s clients include sovereign wealth funds, family offices, and insurance companies among others.
From its office in Dubai, Mercer also looks after Africa, India and Turkey, where they also see opportunity for growth.
Wealth creation in Middle East and Africa (MEA) grew 8.5 per cent to $8.1 trillion last year from $7.5tn in 2015, higher than last year’s global average of 6 per cent and the second-highest growth in a region after Asia-Pacific which grew 9.9 per cent, according to consultancy Boston Consulting Group (BCG). In the region, where wealth grew just 1.9 per cent in 2015 compared with 2014, a pickup in oil prices has helped in wealth generation.
BCG is forecasting MEA wealth will rise to $12tn by 2021, growing at an annual average of 8 per cent.
Drivers of wealth generation in the region will be split evenly between new wealth creation and growth of performance of existing assets, according to BCG.
Another general trend in the region is clients’ looking for a comprehensive approach to investing, according to Mr AbuShaban.
“Institutional investors or some of the families are seeing a slowdown in the available capital they have to invest and in that sense they are looking at optimizing the way they manage their portfolios and making sure they are not investing haphazardly and different parts of their investment are working together,” said Mr AbuShaban.
Some clients also have a higher appetite for risk, given the low interest-rate environment that does not provide enough yield for some institutional investors. These clients are keen to invest in illiquid assets, such as private equity and infrastructure.
“What we have seen is a desire for higher returns in what has been a low-return environment specifically in various fixed income or bonds,” he said.
“In this environment, we have seen a de facto increase in the risk that clients are taking in things like illiquid investments, private equity investments, infrastructure and private debt, those kind of investments were higher illiquidity results in incrementally higher returns.”
The Abu Dhabi Investment Authority, one of the largest sovereign wealth funds, said in its 2016 report that has gradually increased its exposure in direct private equity and private credit transactions, mainly in Asian markets and especially in China and India. The authority’s private equity department focused on structured equities owing to “their defensive characteristics.”
