Denmark’s High Court upholds people smuggling conviction for couple who gave Syrian refugees lift and biscuits | The Independent

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/denmark-high-court-people-smuggling-conviction-couple-lisbeth-zornig-syrian-refugees-lift-coffee-a7326301.html

Ms Zornig was one of dozens of Danes who picked up refugees on 7
September last year after a train from Germany was stopped in the Danish
border town of Rødby.

Footage showed
scenes of confusion and panic as asylum seekers fled police on the
station platform, running into the surrounding fields to start their
long walk along a motorway to Sweden.

Ms Zornig said she was driving through the Danish island of Lolland
on her way to Copenhagen when she came to a column of migrants trudging
along the side of the road, escorted by authorities.

Feeling unable to drive past, she stopped and got talking to a Syrian
family of five-year-old twin sisters, their mother and three others who
were attempting to reach family in Sweden.

With several police officers present who failed to intervene, she
offered them a lift with her to the Danish capital, stopping at her home
for a cup of coffee and some biscuits before Mr Lindholm dropped them
off at Copenhagen’s railway station.

But Ms Zornig said she does not regret their action after visiting
the Syrian family in their new home in Sweden, where their asylum
applications have been accepted.

“I don’t regret what we did that day – it was the only decent thing
to do,” she added. “We gave them the opportunity for a new and peaceful
life.

“I have five children and I would have a real problem telling them
that I left a family at the side of the road because I was scared of the
law.”

Under Denmark’s Aliens Act,
it is illegal to “assist” or transport anyone without residence permits
in the country, with the crime punishable for a fine or up to two years
imprisonment.