'Death Truck' Driver Pleads Innocent

The Dutch driver of a truck in which 58 Chinese immigrants stifled to death pleaded innocent to manslaughter charges Thursday.

Perry Wacker, 32, appeared in court in Maidstone, Kent, near where the bodies of the 54 men and four women were found by customs officials June 18.

The migrants died in the back of an airtight refrigerated truck during a crossing from Belgium to Dover. They had started the trip in a Rotterdam warehouse.

Wacker, of Rotterdam, pleaded innocent to 58 counts of manslaughter and of conspiring to smuggle the 58 people, along with two survivors, into Britain.

A 29-year-old interpreter, Ying Guo, also denied conspiracy to smuggle illegal immigrants.

A trial date will be set Dec. 22, with proceedings expected to begin in February.

In a parallel case, a Dutch prosecutor on Wednesday said police there have arrested another suspect.

"On November 22, the police arrested a 22-year-old man. He is suspected of being involved in the transport of the immigrants from a so called safehouse to a warehouse in Rotterdam," said public prosecutor Gerard de Haas.

Police were also searching for a second man, age 24, suspected of being involved in transporting the illegal immigrants, De Haas said.

The Dutch trial of five other Dutch suspects, who were arrested earlier and accused of being involved in human trafficking, is scheduled to start on December 13. Two are also charged with manslaughter.