Seven foreign fishermen said that although they were not formally under arrest, they were not being allowed to leave the island.

Angelo Miraglia, as captain of the Mariella, and his crew have filed an urgent constitutional application against the Parliamentary Secretary for Agriculture and Fisheries, the Attorney General and the Director of Fisheries asking the court to order the release of their vessel and to award compensation for the damages suffered.

The members of the Mariella crew are Massimo Miraglia, Sebastiano Miraglia, Giovanni Rubera, Martino Di Benedetto, all from Syracuse, and Tunisian Kamel Bouji and Karim Bouji.

They say they were fishing for swordfish last week when the ship’s engine’s cooling system developed a fault. On December 9, they informed the Maltese authorities they were entering port for repairs and in fact sailed into Valletta the following day.

Upon arrival, as they further submitted in their application, Maltese fishing protection officers checked the vessel and no irregularities were registered in the inspection records.

When preparing to leave last Friday, the fishermen said the vessel’s agent was verbally informed that they were not authorised to leave before certain “clarifications” were made.

They said that they were never told what sort of “clarifications” were necessary.

In an exchange between the Maltese and Italian authorities, it transpired that the Mariella had been detained to allow for further checks of her log book.

The Maltese authorities con-fiscated the swordfish that, according to the crew, had been caught legally but they were given neither a receipt nor a reason why this was being done. They added that they received no formal information about what happened with the fish, although there had been rumours it had been sold at the fish market.

The vessel’s local agent in-formed the fishermen they could not leave Malta “until further notice”. The fishermen are claiming that although they were not formally arrested, their condition was equivalent to arrest.

They added that their predicament was exacerbated by the fact that they had not been informed about their rights and were not told they could not leave.

Maltese fishermen told this paper they were supporting the Mariella’s crew, adding that they were angry at the way their foreign colleagues were being treated by the authorities.