LONDON — The driver of a truck in which 39 bodies were found in southeastern England made his first court appearance on Monday to face criminal charges related to the deaths and suspected human trafficking, even as the authorities were working to establish the identities of the victims.
The driver, 25-year-old Maurice Robinson, has been charged with 39 counts of manslaughter over the grisly discovery on Wednesday last week, along with conspiracy to traffic people, conspiracy to assist unlawful immigration and money laundering.
Mr. Robinson, who is from Northern Ireland, appeared via a video link in Chelmsford Magistrates’ Court on Monday, according to the Essex police, and a judge ordered him held in custody.
He was not asked to enter a plea and did not request release on bail, according to a local news outlet, The Essex Echo. His case will be sent on to the Central Criminal Court in London, where it will continue in November, the police said.
The investigation into the deaths has stretched from Grays, in the county of Essex, where the truck was discovered in an industrial park, to Belgium, China, Ireland and Vietnam. The trailer in which the bodies were found was a refrigerated container, but it is not clear whether the refrigeration was turned on.
While deadly incident bears all the markings of a global trafficking operation turned tragic, the authorities in Britain are still working to establish who the 39 victims were, where they came from, and what led them to their fate.
The Essex Police who are leading the investigation initially said the victims, eight women and 31 men, were believed to be Chinese citizens, but a number of families in Vietnam have said they believe their relatives may be among the dead.
Citizens of Vietnam and China are often smuggled illegally into Britain for labor exploitation, according to Britain’s National Crime Agency.
Bui Thanh Son, deputy foreign minister of Vietnam, said the British authorities had sent files on four victims to the Ministry of Public Security, seeking help from Vietnam in establishing their identities, according to a Vietnamese state-run news outlet.
The British ambassador to Vietnam will meet with representatives from the country’s foreign ministry on Monday to exchange further information, the report said, and the local authorities have begun taking hair and nail samples from families who fear their relatives may be among the dead, to aid in DNA verification.
The police in Britain said the formal identification of the victims and verification of their nationalities would take some time, with officers tasked with processing all the property that was with the victims in the lorry, including mobile phones.
A number of additional arrests have been made in relation to the deaths. On Friday, a 38-year-old man and a 38-year-old woman from Warrington in northern England were arrested, and later in the day a 46-year-old man from Northern Ireland was arrested at Stansted Airport, near London. All three were questioned on suspicion of manslaughter and conspiracy to traffic people and then later released on bail.
The container in which the bodies were found had been transported on a ship from Zeebrugge, Belgium, to the British port of Purfleet in Essex. The tractor unit of the truck, driven by Mr. Robinson, entered Britain from Ireland before it collected the trailer.
On Saturday, the Irish police arrested a 23-year-old truck driver at Dublin Port, after he returned to the country by ferry from France. The Belgian authorities say the man had transported the refrigerated container to Belgium from Ireland before its fateful return journey across the channel.
Eric Van Der Sypt, a spokesman for the Belgian public prosecutor’s office, told The Guardian on Monday that the man had been identified by the Belgian authorities last week.
“I think the most important thing is that the police interrogate him as soon as possible because even if he is not involved directly in the case he may have crucial information,” Mr. Van Der Sypt said.
Prime Minister Boris Johnson visited Grays, the town where the truck was found, on Monday and signed a book of condolences for the victims.
“The whole nation and indeed the world has been shocked by this tragedy, and the cruelty of the fate that has been suffered by innocent people who were hoping for a better life in this country,” he wrote, as seen in an image shared by the BBC.