The four main suspects involved in the deaths of 71 migrants from Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan found in a truck on an Austrian highway in 2015 were jailed for 25 years Thursday (June 14th), AFP reported.

The trial took place in Hungary, which took over the proceedings from Vienna after it emerged that the migrants had suffocated in Hungary.

Ten other suspects also were found guilty and handed prison sentences of between three and 12 years by the court in the southern town of Kecskemet.

The men had been charged with "aggravated murder with particular cruelty" in the year-long trial, which put the spotlight on the plight of migrants who put their lives into the hands of human traffickers.

The victims included 59 men, eight women and four children, including a baby, who had been among the hundreds of thousands of desperate people fleeing the Middle East and elsewhere in 2015, triggering Europe's worst migrant crisis since World War II.

Hungarian officials said the Budapest-based ring was a professional network with more than 15 vehicles used to transport refugees who were trekking up from Greece along the western Balkans to Europe.

The gang had smuggled more than 1,100 people from Hungary into Austria since February 2015, charging up to 1,500 euros ($1,760) a head.