The Washington Post - 24.10.2019

T H U R S D A Y , O C T O B E R  2 4,  2 0 1 9 .  T H E  W A S H I N G T O N  P O S T EZ RE A

BY JOANNA SLATER

AND SONIA PAUL

new delhi — A 51-year-old

American citizen has been held

in an Indian jail for more than

three months after she arrived at

a border crossing without a pass-

port or visa.

Farida Malik, who lives in

California, was traveling from

Kathmandu, Nepal, to New Delhi

by bus in July, court documents

say.

At the Indian border, she told

officials that she had left her

passport in Kathmandu and

showed them a photo of it on her

phone. Border personnel said

they checked her passport in

their system and found that she

had not applied for an Indian

visa.

Rather than return Malik to

Nepal, they arrested her and

charged her with violating In-

dia’s visa and passport statutes.

Her trial began this week.

Malik sounds “very anxious”

and “desperate,” said her brother

Nauman Malik, who also lives

in California. He was able to

speak to her briefly on Tuesday

for the first time since her deten-

tion.

Malik forgot her passport at

her hotel in Kathmandu, her

brother said. He arranged to

have it delivered to her lawyer in

India in August.

Malik was born in Pakistan

and immigrated to the United

States as a teenager. She became

an American citizen in 1992, her

brother said. She worked in in-

formation technology until four

years ago, when she left her

job to care for her mother, who

had been diagnosed with lung

cancer.

A spokeswoman for the U.S.

Embassy in New Delhi referred

queries about the case to the

State Department in Washing-

ton.

“We are aware of the arrest of a

U.S. citizen in Uttarakhand,

India,” said a State Department

official who spoke on the condi-

tion of anonymity in adherence

with internal policy. “We take

seriously our responsibility to

assist U.S. citizens abroad and

are monitoring the situation.”

U.S. Embassy officials have

visited Malik three times, ac-

cording to her brother, to check

on her welfare.

India’s Ministry of External

Affairs and Ministry of Home

Affairs declined to respond to

questions about Malik’s situa-

tion, including whether her birth

in Pakistan was a factor in her

case.

Malik’s detention appears

highly unusual. The State De-

partment declined to say wheth-

er there were previous cases

in which Americans had been

jailed after arriving at the Indian

border without a passport or

visa.

All Americans must apply for a

visa before arriving in India.

Chandra Shekhar Kargeti, one

of Malik’s lawyers in India, said

he could not recall a similar case.

His previous clients charged

with violations of India’s visa and

passport laws were Pakistani cit-

izens — most of them shepherds

— who had unwittingly crossed

the border into India.

Ashok Kumar, a senior police

official in the state of Uttara-

khand, said that he, too, was

unaware of a case comparable to

Malik’s but that authorities had

acted properly. “If you do not

have a valid travel document you

will be arrested under the Pass-

ports Act and the Foreigners

Act,” he said. “The court of law

will now decide.”

A Bollywood aficionado who

hoped to launch a singing career,

Malik had spent time in India in

the past. She completed a three-

month course at the Asian Acad-

emy of Film and Television out-

side Delhi, an official at the

school confirmed.

On her latest trip abroad,

Malik traveled to Indonesia and

Nepal before attempting to visit

India. On her Facebook page, she

posted photos of a sunset in Bali

and waterfalls near the Nepali

city of Pokhara.

Courts have rejected Malik’s

application for bail, and her

lawyer said the trial could con-

tinue until the end of November.

If convicted, she faces a maxi-

mum of five years in prison.

For Nauman Malik, the

thought of his sister spending

more time in jail is unbearable.

“She made a mistake,” he said.

“She’s not a criminal.”

joanna.slater@washpost.com

Paul reported from Palo Alto,

Calif. Tania Dutta contributed to this

report.

American

detained

in India

for months

BY KARLA ADAM

AND RICK NOACK

london — British police
launched one of the country’s
biggest ever murder investiga-
tions on Wednesday after
39 bodies were found inside a
tractor-trailer at an industrial
park in southeast England.
Essex police said the driver, a
25-year-old man from Northern
Ireland, had been arrested on
suspicion of murder.
The bodies — 38 adults and
one teenager — were found at
Waterglade Industrial Park in
Grays, about 25 miles east of
central London. Police have not
yet offered an account of what
might have happened, but the
scene bore the markings of hu-
man trafficking.
Essex Deputy Chief Constable
Pippa Mills said police had not
yet identified the dead or where
they are from, adding that it
could be a “lengthy process.”
Essex police said they thought
the truck traveled from Zeebrug-
ge, a Belgian port, to Purfleet, a
small town in Essex on the River
Thames, docking shortly after
12:30 a.m. That account is an
update from an earlier police
report that the truck entered the
United Kingdom on Saturday via
Holyhead in North Wales.
At about 1:05 a.m. Wednesday,
the truck left Purfleet, police
said. Thirty-five minutes later,
police received a call from local
ambulance services saying they
discovered the container. It was
unclear how the ambulance ser-
vices had been alerted.
“We have arrested the lorry
driver in connection with the
incident who remains in police
custody as our enquiries contin-

ue,” Essex Chief Superintendent

Andrew Mariner said in the

statement. “This is a tragic inci-

dent where a large number of

people have lost their lives. Our

enquiries are ongoing to estab-

lish what has happened.”

Police on Wednesday did not

name the driver, though several

British media outlets identified

him, citing sources in Northern

Ireland, and posted photos from

what were said to be his social

media accounts.

The truck was registered in

Varna, Bulgaria — a port city on

the Black Sea — to a company

owned by an Irish citizen, accord-

ing to a statement by the Bulgar-

ian foreign ministry. Bulgarian

Prime Minister Boyko Borissov

told a local television broadcast-

er that the truck left immediately

after it was registered in 2017 and

hadn’t returned.

British Prime Minister Boris

Johnson said he was “appalled by

this tragic incident in Essex.”

“I am receiving regular up-

dates and the Home Office will

work closely with Essex Police as

we establish exactly what has

happened. My thoughts are with

all those who lost their lives &

their loved ones,” he tweeted.

Jackie Doyle-Price, a Con-

servative lawmaker, told Parlia-

ment on Wednesday: “Sadly, this

is not the first time that we have

found people in metal containers

in my constituency. We’re really

sorry to say it’s all too regular an

occurrence and it was only a

matter of time before that would

end in tragedy.”

“This is now a multinational

problem that we need to fix,” she

added.

British authorities say human

trafficking and modern-day en-

slavement are on the rise. Nation-

al Crime Agency figures show

that nearly 7,000 possible victims

were reported last year — a

36 percent increase from 2017.

Those people came from 130

countries, with Albanians and

Vietnamese the most common

foreign nationalities.

Police didn’t identify the peo-

ple found Wednesday as mi-

grants, but the case echoed fatal

incidents involving migrants

smuggled in containers.

In June 2000, the bodies of 58

Chinese immigrants were found

in the back of a truck container in

the English port city of Dover.

The following year, a Dutch driv-

er was sentenced to 14 years in

jail for manslaughter. The immi-

grants, who paid a smuggling

gang $26,000, suffocated after

the driver closed a vent on the

truck during a five-hour ferry

ride across the English Channel.

In August 2015, 71 bodies

were found on a highway in

Austria, inside a sealed and

locked freezer truck. Most of the

people were from Syria, Iran, Iraq

and Afghanistan. The discovery

came at the peak of Europe’s

refugee influx and became one of

its defining, tragic moments.

Research by German public

television and the Sueddeutsche

Zeitung newspaper later re-

vealed that Hungarian officials

had tapped the traffickers’

phones but failed to act in time.

After the 2015 incident, the

E.U. law enforcement agency Eu-

ropol added a dedicated Euro-

pean Migrant Smuggling Cen-

ter. In a report published this

year, the center found that the

most common method of smug-

gling involves hiding people in-

side vehicles.

Rod McKenzie, managing di-

rector of policy and public affairs

at the Road Haulage Association,

said the journey for the people in

the truck found in Essex would

have been “hellish.” He said it

was clear from pictures that the

truck had a refrigerated unit,

where temperatures can go as

low as minus-13 Fahrenheit.

“It would be completely dark,

probably completely airless, no

sanitary facilities, possibly freez-

ing temperatures, with the likeli-

hood of death from freezing or

suffocation enormous,” McKen-

zie said.

He surmised that those who

sent the trailer to Essex may have

chosen the route in an effort to

avoid the strict checks at the

popular crossing between Calais,

France, and Dover. He said au-

thorities there use sniffer dogs

and monitors that can detect

heartbeats, heat and CO2 levels,

among other things.

“Purfleet, however, doesn’t

have that level of technology to

screen lorries,” he said.

karla.adam@washpost.com

rick.noack@washpost.com

Noack reported from Berlin. William

Booth in London contributed to this

report.

BY MICHAEL BIRNBAUM

AND WILLIAM BOOTH

brussels — The timetable of
Britain’s withdrawal from the Eu-
ropean Union was in limbo on
Wednesday, with Prime Minister
Boris Johnson waiting on E.U.
leaders to decide whether and
how long to delay his country’s
departure from the bloc.
Europeans had been waiting to
see how far Johnson’s Brexit deal
could proceed in Parliament be-
fore they decided whether to de-
lay the day of the split, which
is scheduled for Oct. 31. But with
parliamentary votes on Tuesday
forcing Johnson to give law-
makers more time to scrutinize
the terms of Britain’s departure,
the control of the timing re-
verts to Brussels.
The likeliest outcome is for
E.U. leaders to delay the depar-
ture until Jan. 31, the day request-
ed by Johnson in an unsigned
letter he sent under protest on
Saturday. British lawmakers
forced him to ask for a delay
rather than to lead Britain out of
the European Union in October
without any deal in place to buf-
fer the way.
“I’m recommending the EU

accept the UK request for an

extension,” European Council

President Donald Tusk tweet-

ed Wednesday, saying he had

spoken to Johnson by phone to

explain his reasoning. Under the

likeliest terms of an extension,

Britain could leave earlier than

the end of January if it approves

the withdrawal deal before that

and says it wants to go.

But it was not fully resolved

whether E.U. leaders would go

along with Tusk. France, in par-

ticular, has been deeply skeptical

about repeated delays to the de-

parture, with President Emman-

uel Macron questioning whether

the bloc’s being flexible takes too

much pressure off British law-

makers to act.

Irish Prime Minister Leo Var-

adkar, an important voice in the

Brexit discussions, said Wednes-

day that he would support the

deadline extension to Jan. 31.

Johnson has floated the idea of

holding a general election, but it

remains unclear how that would

fit into a Brexit delay, and for now,

E.U. leaders aren’t showing much

interest in factoring that into

their decision.

E.U. ambassadors met Wednes-

day for a preliminary discussion

about the delay request, and they

will take further action on Friday.

If the remaining 27 E.U. countries

are comfortable with putting off

Brexit until the end of January,

they could agree to it on Friday

without further discussion. Dip-

lomats familiar with the discus-

sions said that most countries

supported a January delay but

that France was still holding out,

for now, for a briefer reprieve.

“We need clarity on the next

steps and a political clarification

to stop the toxic uncertainty that

is hurting European citizens, mil-

lions of families and businesses,”

French E.U. affairs minister Amé-

lie de Montchalin told the French

Parliament on Tuesday. “An ex-

tension is requested: What for?

With what justifications? We

know that time alone will not

bring the solution, but a political

decision. We cannot extend this

situation indefinitely.”

But there was widespread ex-

pectation that a delay of some

sort would be granted and that

Britain will not crash out of the

bloc next week.

Some British lawmakers told

Johnson on Wednesday to get

over it.

“Will my right honorable

friend get over his disappoint-

ment and accept that October 31

is now Halloween and it is devoid

of any symbolic or political con-

tent and will fade away into his-

torical memory very rapidly?”

asked Kenneth Clarke, a longtime

Conservative lawmaker and sen-

ior member of the House of Com-

mons.

There was little progress in

London on Wednesday, as John-

son met with Labour leader Jer-

emy Corbyn but failed to agree on

a timetable to move the Brexit bill

forward.

michael.birnbaum@washpost.com

william.booth@washpost.com

Booth reported from London. Quentin

Ariès in Brussels contributed to this

report.

BY MIN JOO KIM

seoul — It’s a mountain resort
with a difference. Visitors to
North Korea’s Mount Kumgang
can revel in the beauty of scenic
valleys, waterfalls and temples
just a few miles from the heavily
militarized border that divides
the Korean Peninsula.
At least, that’s how the thinking
went. Opened in 1999 and envi-
sioned by North Korea as a desti-
nation for foreign tourists, espe-
cially South Koreans, the resort
became a symbol of cross-border
engagement amid often-fraught
relations.
Families separated by the Ko-
rean War have held reunions
there. South Korean firms invest-
ed hundreds of millions of dollars
in the project. But since the South
pulled out in 2008, after one of its
citizens was killed by a North
Korean soldier, the resort has lan-
guished as a virtual ghost town.
On Wednesday, North Korean
leader Kim Jong Un instructed
officials to remove “shabby” and
“unpleasant-looking” South Ko-
rean facilities from Mount Kum-
gang, state media reported.
He bemoaned the “very back-
ward” South Korean architecture
that resembled “makeshift tents
in a disaster-stricken area.” North

Korea should take the lead in de-

veloping the area according to

“our own way,” Kim said, while

stressing that South Koreans were

still welcome to visit.

Security analysts said Kim’s

move signaled his frustration at

the lack of progress in proposed

economic projects between North

and South Korea, which are

blocked by sanctions amid a dead-

lock in nuclear talks with Wash-

ington.

When South Korean President

Moon Jae-in met with Kim in Sep-

tember 2018, he agreed to resume

cooperation on suspended proj-

ects, notably Mount Kumgang

and a joint industrial park at Kae-

song — valuable sources of in-

come for the cash-strapped North.

While tighter sanctions on

Pyongyang since 2016 prohibited

such ventures, hopes were high

among business and political offi-

cials that improving relations

might lead to sanctions relief. In a

speech Jan. 1, the North Korean

leader said he would resume oper-

ations at the resort and the indus-

trial estate “without any precon-

ditions.”

President Trump — a real estate

investor himself — has talked up

North Korea’s potential as a desti-

nation for tourists and tourism

investment. He has even praised

the appealing North Korean land-

scape seen in footage of the coun-

try’s missile tests.

“You could have the best hotels

in the world right there,” he said

after his first summit meeting

with Kim in Singapore last year,

where he assured North Korea of a

“bright future” if it agreed to relin-

quish its nuclear weapons.

More than a year later, these

business partnerships have not

restarted, and a breakthrough in

nuclear diplomacy with Washing-

ton seems increasingly elusive.

South Korea would seek to

“protect the property rights of our

people” and was willing to discuss

the Mount Kumgang operations

with North Korea, said Unifica-

tion Ministry spokesman Lee

Sang-min.

The flap over the resort, which

is also known as Diamond Moun-

tain, underscores the risks South

Korean firms face in getting in-

volved in ostensibly political proj-

ects with North Korea. While

some see a prospective opening

up of North Korea as a huge op-

portunity, many have suffered

losses when relations have deteri-

orated in the past, and had their

assets confiscated.

Hyundai Asan, a subsidiary of

the Hyundai conglomerate that

built and operated tourist accom-

modations around Mount Kum-

gang, said in a statement that the

company was “confused” by

North Korea’s announcement and

would respond “in a calm man-

ner.”

The company had been prepar-

ing to resume operations for years

and had stepped up those mea-

sures as relations between North

and South Korea warmed last

year, said spokesman Kim Ha-

young. Hyundai Asan said it had

invested almost $200 million in

facilities and paid some $480 mil-

lion in operating fees to North

Korea between 1999 and 2008.

In a budget speech on Tuesday,

President Moon called for more

economic engagement with

North Korea, including a rail con-

nection across the border. Moon

said North Korea’s “bright future”

is only possible on the basis of a

“peace economy” led by inter-

Korean exchanges. “I urge North

Korea to reciprocate,” he said.

minjoo.kim@washpost.com

Man in custody after 39 bodies found in truck

PETER NICHOLLS/REUTERS

Police secure the scene in Essex, England, where dozens of people were found dead inside a container

truck. Authorities have not categorized the case or victims, but human trafficking is suspected.

British police seize driver

in case bearing markings

of human trafficking

E.U. leaders consider delaying Britain’s departure until January

Kim orders razing of buildings that once drew foreign tourists

JESSICA TAYLOR/U.K. PARLIAMENT/AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE

British Prime Minister Boris Johnson, shown Wednesday in the

House of Commons, is unlikely to deliver Brexit by Oct. 31.

ASSOCIATED PRESS

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un said the South Korean facilities

at his country’s Mount Kumgang resort were “unpleasant-looking.”