ECSA and ETF newly denounce as unjust the inflicted sentence the commander of Prestige



Today the representatives of the marine shipowners and the Europeans have expressed newly their worry for the decision last January of the Spanish Supreme Court on the case of the sinking of the Prestige oil tanker, happened at the end of 2002 in front of the coasts of the Galizia ( on 19 November 2002), that it has overturned the sentence of the provincial Court of the Coruña (Galizia) condemning to two years of jail the captain of the ship, Apostolos Ioannis Mangouras, as author in charge of a "rash criminal behavior" against the atmosphere, with the aggravating circumstance to have caused "incalculable damages" to the marine atmosphere as a result of the spillage of oil from the ship. Moreover the sentence of the Supreme Court has established the liability directed of the insurance company The London P&I Club and of the controlled one of Mare Shipping Inc. which owner of the ship, let alone the liability of the International Oil Pollution Compensation Funds (IOPC Funds), the international bottom for the compensation of the damages caused from the oil.

According to the European Community Shipowners' Associations (ECSA) and the European Workers' Transport Federation (ETF), "this decision is not other that an ulterior test, one too much, of the unjust treatment of the marine ones that it has had beginning already at the moment of the incident and that, if of captain Mangouras - they have denounced the association of the European shipowners and the European trade-union federation of the workers of the transport - it is continued for an indefensible and debilitating period of fourteen long years of judicial persecution".

ECSA and ETF have emphasized that "the sentence of the provincial Court had assessed innocence of commander Mangouras for the simple reason that it had bravely completed own must professional in the attempt save its ship. Of forehead to a refusal by the Spanish authorities to offer to the ship faulty a shelter place, where an oil spillage could have been contained - they have remembered the two organizations - not only the commander, but also the chief engineer and the second in command had remained on board of the ship while a leak in the hull had been opened and the turnover risk dramatically was increased. Under the pressure of the Spanish authorities, the commander had had to take a series of measures against its will that had forced the damaged oil tanker to remain in sea in terrible conditions, until the moment in which it broke in two tronconi and sank to the wide one of the coasts of the Galizia".

ECSA and ETF have restated "not to be able to accept that they are the marine ones to having to pay a so heavy price, while the Marine Authority, that it was exempted by every responsibility, had ordered to the ship to maintain itself outside from any port of shelter, with very you notice catastrophic effects on natural environment".

"It is outside argument - they have still denounced ECSA and ETF - than too much often the marine ones are used as pure and simple scapegoats on which unloading all the responsibility for eventual environmental damages and unjustly cited, sometimes in flagrant violation of their fundamental rights".

Moreover ECSA and ETF have evidenced to be worried that such decision "will have an impact negative on the ability to attraction of the careers on the sea and, therefore, on the future recruitment of competent marine young people. Own when ECSA and ETF, with the EU commission, are trying to promote the European marine profession and to return it attractive for the European young people - has concluded the two organizations - the sentence of the Supreme Court sends a mistaken sign completely".