Former FN supporter on trial for smuggling Iranian lover to UK

by Dramelin 9:00 AM 0 comments

A former supporter of France`s far-right National Front party (FN) has gone on trial for helping a man she met in the Calais migrant camp cross the border to Britain.
Béatrice Huret is charged with aiding an illegal border crossing after she bought a boat for her partner, an Iranian man named Mokhtar.
He and two others successfully crossed the English channel with her help.
Mrs Huret is facing up to 10 years in prison if she is convicted.
One issue being considered by the court is whether Mrs Huret, the widow of a border police officer, was part of an organised people-smuggling organisation.
Three others are facing the same charges.
"I know what I did," she told reporters outside court on Tuesday morning, but added that her actions were "out of love".
Her main concern would be not seeing Mokhtar if she was imprisoned, she added, as she regularly visits him at his new home in the UK.
Her lawyer told the AFP news agency she would ask the court to dismiss the case because she had acted for "humanitarian reasons.
" Mrs Huret admitted that for Mokhtar, she would do it again, reporters at the French court said.
Calais, my love Mrs Huret wrote a book about her experience, titled Calais Mon Amour, and filmmakers are now reportedly bidding for the rights to the story.
In the book, she details how her late husband, who died of cancer in 2010, had supported Marine Le Pen`s National Front, but could not do so officially because of his job.
She became a supporter, however, and said she had been worried about an influx of foreigners to France.
But that changed when she offered a lift to a young Sudanese migrant trying to get to the Jungle camp at Calais, and saw the conditions there for herself.
She began volunteering at the camp shortly thereafter, where she met Mokhtar, a teacher who had converted to Christianity and was fleeing persecution in Iran.
When the pair met, he and some other migrants had sewn their lips shut in protest at the camp`s conditions - an image which was widely published by media around the world.
"I sat down and then he came over and very gently he asked me if I would like a cup of tea, and then he went and made me tea, and it was a bit of a shock.
It was love at first sight," she said.
A romance blossomed between the unlikely couple - despite a strong language barrier.
Mokhtar spoke English, but little French - so they used Google Translate.
Eventually, she bought a small boat with about €1,000 (£980) provided by Mokhtar and his friends, and they set off in the early morning from Dunkirk in their attempt to cross the English Channel and enter the UK.
The journey is a dangerous one, and their boat sprung a leak on the way - but the three migrants were rescued by UK emergency services and Mokhtar successfully applied for asylum.
The Calais camp, known as the Jungle, was demolished in October 2016, but at its peak held close to 10,000 migrants attempting to reach the UK through the Channel Tunnel, the French side of which is nearby.
While the large-scale camp is now gone, the area is still subject to attempts by migrants to cross the border illegally.
In June, a makeshift roadblock caused a fatal road accident, killing a van driver.
Nine Eritrean migrants were arrested.