A court compiling evidence against three teenagers accused of hijacking an oil tanker that rescued a boatload of migrants has heard more witnesses testify that the accused had gone to the bridge at the invitation of the captain.

Mohammed El Sesi from Senegal, one of the 105 migrants picked up in distress by the El-Hiblu 1 in March 2019 appeared in court before magistrate Nadine Lia on Tuesday.

Three teenage asylum seekers – one from Ivory Coast, aged 15, and two from Guinea, aged 16 and 19 – face terrorism-related charges for unlawfully seizing control of the ship.

The three youths deny the charges.

As the case has progressed over the years, the court has heard a large number of the rescued migrants contradict the version of events initially given to the court by the captain of the ship. He testified in April 2019 that the crew had locked themselves in the bridge as the migrants acted aggressively.

Transcripts of the captain radioing for assistance, telling the Maltese authorities that the vessel was “under piracy” and that some crew members had been injured were read out in court.

The captain is also the only witness to mention injuries in the three years of testimony.

'This is not Europe, this is Libya'

From the witness stand, El Sesi described how the rescued migrants realised they were being brought to Libya upon recognising coastline. 

He said: "We all stopped the boat. We told him ‘you are the one who told us that you’re taking us to Europe. This is not Europe, this is Libya.’”

Inspector Omar Zammit, prosecuting, asked what the captain had done after that.

“He stopped the boat to look at us. We told him, if that’s the way it is, take us back to where you picked us up.’ He said nothing. So we told him `either you take us there or you take us to Europe.’”

He said the group repeatedly told the captain they did not want to go back to Libya and began to shout, "We don't want. We don't want."

Asked why they had shouted, the witness replied that it was because the captain did not appear to react.

Inspector Zammit asked the witness how many people were shouting and moving around the boat. “All of us,” the witness replied.

“Where was the captain while you were moving around the boat?” Zammit asked. “He was up there looking at us,” said the witness, referring to the ship’s bridge. 

'We remained calm'

After this, the captain told the migrants to calm down, he said. “And we remained calm to listen to him. He said ‘if that’s the way it is, I will take you to Europe.’”

Inspector Zammit asked whether the witness knew why the captain had decided to return them to Libya, but the reply was negative.

“At a certain moment, he stopped talking to us and went back inside,” The captain was accompanied by one or two crewmembers, he said.

Asked whether the captain had been accompanied by anyone else during the voyage, the witness referred to the three accused.

“Yes. The three persons who worked with us…the persons I mentioned were the persons responding to the captain’s questions when he asked if any of us spoke English…Those were the ones who were translating.”

The inspector pressed the witness on what had needed translating, but the witness explained that the captain spoke to the accused in English. “I do not understand English.” El Sesi recognised the three defendants as the English speaking people he was speaking of and pointed them out at the request of the court.

'They were mediators'

“We chose those 3 persons as they were the ones who spoke English,” he repeated.

“During the voyage they were mediators between us and the captain,” he insisted. “The only thing they told us was to remain calm.” 

The Inspector asked how he knew that it was the captain who had asked the three youths back into the cabin. “Because they were the mediators,” replied the witness.

The accused said nothing else, the witness said. Not even on the voyage towards Europe. 

“We stayed like that until we arrived in Malta.”

The El-Hiblu docked in Malta in March 2019 as police arrive to pick up passengers. Photo: Jonathan Borg

The Maltese authorities had later boarded the boat, he said. “They were dressed in a kind of uniform…They told us to remain calm.”

The three accused had been told by the captain to rejoin the group at that stage. “It was at the same moment when the authorities boarded,” El Sesi explained.

'We just shouted'

Inspector Zammit asked the witness if, earlier that day, he had noted any commotion or disturbance on board when the migrants had spotted the Libyan coast. “We just shouted. Only shouted,”  insisted the man.

Lawyer Cedric Mifsud, defence counsel together with lawyer Gianluca Cappitta, cross-examined the witness.

He asked whether the boat they had left Libya on was a small dinghy. “Yes. It was a rubber boat,” El Sesi replied. He confirmed that there were around a hundred people on board the dinghy and that they had spent around 19 hours at sea on the dinghy before they were rescued by the tanker.

He confirmed that the rescued migrants began to panic when they recognised the Libyan coastline, because they knew they would be ill-treated in Libya. The three accused had started to calm them down straight away, he said.

They had been chosen both because they spoke English and because they had been calming down the passengers, he said in reply to further questions.

Asked whether it was the captain who had asked the accused to come to the bridge, the witness emphatically agreed. “Of course!” 

They did not request to go to the captain, suggested lawyer Mifsud. “Yes” replied the witness, also confirming that some of the migrants were threatening to jump overboard when the Libyan coast hove into view.

Pointing out that the witness had described the accused as mediators, the lawyer asked “did any of the migrants tell them ‘hijack the ship’ or ‘take over the ship’?” “No,” replied the man.

No weapons

Neither were they carrying any weapons, makeshift or otherwise, he added.

They had gone to and from the bridge a few times, he said. There was no commotion, he said. “The situation was calm.”

Only the captain, the navigator and the three accused were on the bridge, he said, but confirmed the presence of other crew members in other places aboard the ship.

“Does he remember any crew members being locked up by the migrants?” asked the lawyer. “Really, I don’t know,” he said, but repeated that there had been no violence on board. “Shouting only.”

He also said that the three accused had not apprehended any crew members and had not forced them to do anything against their will.

The case continues in April.