A cargo vessel that weighs more than 5,000 tons managed to evade two arrest warrants issued by Maltese courts last Tuesday, in the second such incident this year.
The Madra, a 100-metre cargo ship, was slapped with two arrest warrants on August 18 and 19 on behalf of Cassar Fuels and Italian firm Shipoll, which together claim to be owed some €220,000 by the shipping company that owns it.
However, on Tuesday, the captain switched off the vessel’s tracking system, lifted the anchor and made away, before the Armed Forces of Malta could intercept it.
The AFM dispatched a vessel but they failed to locate it on the radar before the ship crossed the border and therefore could not chase it outside Maltese waters, an army source told The Sunday Times of Malta.
To make matters worse, the vessel was already some nine miles off Malta in the stretch of sea outside Birzebbugia, known as Bunker Area 3. This is just three miles short of the border with international waters.
According to international tracking sites, the vessel was some 20 to 25 miles off Beirut, Lebanon at the time of writing yesterday.
On April 30, the MT Atlantik was issued an arrest warrant following a request by a Liberian-registered company, which claimed it was owed €900,000 by the owners of the Marshall Islands-flagged vessel.
The tanker entered Maltese waters for overnight refuelling. However, when port authorities directed the vessel to a berthing location where it could be served with the arrest warrant, the captain switched off the tracking system and steamed into international waters.
The AFM dispatched a vessel but they failed to locate it on radar
The Prime Minister had ordered an inquiry. However, two weeks ago, this newspaper revealed that the probe, led by former army commander Carmel Vassallo, had absolved local authorities, concluding they were alerted to the arrest warrant late in the day.
This time, however, the Madra had been served with the warrant well before the captain decided to flee.
A spokesman for the Prime Minister said that in this particular case, all the procedures had been followed.
“The ship was served with an arrest warrant on time and when it was noticed that the ship was not on the AIS (tracking system), the transport authorities informed the AFM, which immediately went to search for the vessel. But the vessel had already switched off its AIS satellite system and sailed away,” he said.
Since then, he added, Transport Authorities contacted the flag state of MV Madra, Belize, which served the vessel with an international arrest warrant.
Referring to the inquiry, the spokesman said government entities met during the week to improve the systems to avoid similar cases.
Maltese courts process hundreds of such arrests every year. Most of them are uneventful because the vessels’ captains comply with the orders.
The process is essentially a civil matter over outstanding credit. Sources, however, say that Malta is yet to develop an infrastructure to be able to enforce a warrant when this is challenged by “aggressive” captains.
Many lawyers had complained following the MT Atlantik case that such incidents undermine Malta’s reputation in the field.