Hoshiarpur, April 27
The French Police is understood to have arrested Youssuf-El-Hallal, Captain of the Yiohan ship, which had been illegally ferrying 565 passengers, including 227 Indians on board to Sicily (Italy) on December 25, 1996.
Hallal’s arrest is seen as major breakthrough in the on-going Malta boat tragedy investigation. As many as 170 Indians, 88 Pakistani and 149 Sri Lankan illegal migrants were drowned in the Malta-Sicily channel after their boat collided with a ship during a mid-sea transfer on the intervening night of December 24-25, 1996.
While in India, the CBI is investigating the case, separate investigations are going on in Italy, Greece and Malta as well.
According to Mr Balwant Singh Khera, President of the Malta Boat Tragedy Probe Mission, he recently received a communication from the External Affairs Ministry which stated
that it had been informed by the Indian High Commission in Malta that Hallal was arrested by the French Police recently. However, the Italian Government is still awaiting Hallal’s extradition to Italy, where prosecution against 13 accused allegedly involved in the incident is going on, so that he stands trial there. Meanwhile, according to the MEA officials, the second kingpin of this international human trafficking mafia, Turab Ahmed Sheikh remains a free man for want of evidence. Turab who is a Pakistani and acquired Maltese citizenship allegedly had arranged the small ship and the crew Marcel Barbara and Dionysios Werginous for the third accused Eftychios Zeroudakis, Captain of the ill-fated F-174 yacht.
Turab Ahmed Sheikh who was also supposed to go in the ill-fated boat along with Barbara and Zeroudakis but decided to not to go at the last moment after hearing a bad water, is still a free man. The Maltese police could not find any evidence against him. The only charge it could frame against him was that he was in contact with the boat. Since the contact was established when Barbara and Zeroudakis were on high seas outside the
territorial waters of Malta, he could not be implicated,” the MEA letter to the association stated.
According to the MEA letter, the Magisterial enquiry in the incident is still going on but the investigation has not provided any clue about the fate of Barbara and Dionysios who are fear to have died after their boat capsized. The Maltese Police are keeping a surveillance over the family members but it has not provided them any lead.
On the other hand, the Maltese Government has issued a letter of rogatory to Greek authorities to interrogate Zeroudakis a Greek national who, is presently, serving a nine-year imprisonment in some other case. A police party from Malta had been sent to question him, but the Greek authorities did not allow it saying their law did not permit a third country to interrogate someone serving a sentence in Greece.
The Maltese Police was asked to handover the questionnaire to a judge who will convey Zeroudakis reply to the Maltese authorities.
In another development, the Mission has requested the investigating magisterates in Italy, Greece and Malta to make them a party in the on-going cases there for pursuing the compensation claims of the victims’ families against the indicted shipping companies.
