Italy on
Friday arrested three Libyans and two Algerians accused of multiple homicide
and human trafficking.
Their arrest was in connection with the
presumed death by drowning of no fewer than 200 migrants after a ship capsized
in the Mediterranean, police said.
The five were put under formal arrest in
Palermo after being questioned on Thursday.
Police say migrants were beaten and stabbed
during the voyage, with many locked in the hold.
The migrants drowned when the boat flipped
over as the Irish Navy ship LE Niamh approached, probably because desperate
passengers surged to one side as they spotted the ship.
Police said accused men, who aged from 21 to
24, charged the migrants between 1,200 dollars and 1,800 dollars the voyage.
The charges were dependent on where they would
be placed on the boat, which was carrying some 650 people when it capsized off
the Libyan coast. Those in the hold paid less, police said.
No fewer than 400 migrants were rescued by
Italian and Irish ships. Police accused the men after speaking with many of the
survivors after they arrived in Palermo.
In April, a 20-metre (66-foot) vessel capsized
as it approached a merchant ship that had come to its assistance, and no fewer
than 900 people were killed.
It was the deadliest shipwreck in the
Mediterranean for decades and a symbol of Europe's long-running migrant crisis.
(Reuters/NAN)
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