Scoop Link: 2 Arrested in British Truck Deaths

By MAUREEN JOHNSON, Associated Press Writer

LONDON (AP) - Police arrested a second suspect in the deaths of 58 Chinese illegal immigrants and a Chinese refugee came forward Tuesday to say his cousin called repeatedly during a four-month odyssey from China through Russia and into Western Europe and was almost certainly among the dead.

The immigrants were found dead late Sunday at the English port of Dover, apparently suffocated in the back of an unventilated truck on the disastrous final leg of their trip.

The Dutch driver of the truck was detained in Dover and held on suspicion of manslaughter, and on Tuesday, Dutch authorities announced the second arrest. They said they captured the suspect during a raid on three houses in the Dutch port of Rotterdam on Monday.

Police did not release the suspect's name and refused to say if the suspect was a man they had been pursuing - Dutch engineer Arie Van der Spek, 24, who owned the company that leased the truck. Police said earlier that Van der Spek registered the company, Van der Spek Transporten, on June 15. He vanished before police showed up at his Rotterdam apartment Monday.

In Dover, Dutch and British police interrogated the truck driver who brought the young immigrants, most in their 20s, on the last leg of their trip from southern China's Fujian province. And in Canterbury, the only two survivors remained under police guard Tuesday, traumatized by their futile struggle to escape the truck.

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