Trucker accused of killing 39 migrants insists he knew nothing of people smuggling

A Romanian accused of masterminding a people smuggling operation in which 39 Vietnamese migrants died has claimed he was only in Britain to wait for his family’s passports. Gheorghe Nica, 43, is accused of the manslaughter of the migrants, who were found suffocated in a trailer near Grays, Essex. The stowaways were carried in a container from Zeebrugge in Belgium to Purfleet in Essex last 23 October and tried in vain to batter their way out as temperatures inside the…