Criminalisation of seafarers is troubling
The case of 35 seamen, freed after a jail term and rounds of appeals in India, highlights the risks mariners take when doing their everyday jobs
Add BT as a preferred sourceLAST week, there was some very welcome news. Thirty-five men serving five-year prison sentences in India, upon their conviction on arms-smuggling charges, were acquitted by an appeals court nearly two years into their sentences, and then freed.
The six Britons, three Ukrainians, 14 Estonians and 12 Indians were the crew and embarked security guards of the Sierra Leone-flagged anti-piracy ship Seaman Guard Ohio (SGO), which was detained in 2013 while refuelling, allegedly within Indian territorial waters.
Like several similar vessels, the SGO provided armed guards for merchant ships to protect them from Somali-based pirates operating in the Indian Ocean. The vessel thus carried a quantity of arms and ammunition on board. Crucially, the men on board were doing their job, following their employers' instructions and providing an essential service to the global shipping industry. They were not trying to smuggle arms into India.
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