Intercepted fishermen claim they were outside Maltese waters

A defence lawyer yesterday submitted evidence in court to show that the captain of a fishing vessel and four crew members, who stand charged with fishing in Maltese waters, were actually just outside the 25 nautical mile fishing zone on August 2.

The captain of the Cyprus-registered vessel with an all-Egyptian crew Alexander K, Wagih Mohammed El-Ghaly Abou-Hegazy, 37, his brother Oussama Mohammed El-Ghaly Abou-Hegazy, 26, their two cousins Emad El-Din Khalil Ibrahim Abou-Hegazy, 29, and Ibrahim Khalil Ibrahim Abou-Hegazy, 28, and Abdou Helmy El-Bousaty, 30, are pleading not guilty to illegal fishing.

Dr Leslie Cuschieri said that following contacts he made with the Cypriot ministry responsible for fisheries, he was first sent faxes with data automatically transmitted by the ship via satellite to a base station, giving out details about the ship's whereabouts.

But he asked for true copies of the data, so as to be able to submit them in court, and these were sent by courier.

But the prosecution objected and insisted that an official would have to come to Malta and testify under oath about the documents.

The court, presided by Magistrate Dennis Montebello, entrusted a court expert who was already nominated in the case, to try and contact the INMARST agency that runs the satellite via which the data are sent and try to verify that the information given was correct.

The ship's captain yesterday testified that they were fishing at night outside Maltese waters when on the radar he saw a small fast moving boat approaching his vessel. He fired flares to see what kind of boat was approaching them and later realised they were soldiers. A bigger boat went up and as he could not understand the soldiers, he communicated with them via the crew of Rania, another boat belonging to the same company, as they were fishing together.

The AFM claims that the vessel was spotted 22 miles away from Delimara point and then kept moving away, drawing in its fishing gear in the process. The captain said the other boat was not stopped but they were told to follow the patrol boat because they were said to be fishing illegally in Maltese waters, a claim he denied then as he did again in court yesterday.

The captain said the fishing vessel had a computer system that told him where the ship was and how far he was from the shore and he was sure that the vessel was outside Maltese waters and had pencilled down coordinates of where the ship was when they were stopped by the armed forces.

The fish that was caught by the trawler, some 25 crates of hake (merluzz), have in the meantime been thrown away as the captain had refused to sell them at the price of around Lm100 that was offered to them.

The fish is sought after and fetches about four times that price in Cyprus and the captain was not given clear instructions by the owner what to do and the fish was spoilt and had to be dumped.

The case continues.

Police Inspector Ramon Mercieca prosecuted.