[BITList] Fwd: Lloyd's List: Send to Colleague

[Michael Feltham]

Sorry you couldn't read this the first time

Mike
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Begin forwarded message:

From: enquiries at lloydslist.com
Date: 27 January 2009 17:55:13 GMT
To: mj.feltham at madasafish.com
Subject: Lloyd's List: Send to Colleague


The below article was sent to you from Mike Feltham (mj.feltham at madasafish.com 
) with the following message: I thought you might be interested in the  
article below.

A political pawn?
Rainbow Nelson - Tuesday 27 January 2009

EVERY day, Volodymyr Ustymenko, the Ukrainian master of the Italian- 
owned bulker B Atlantic, wakes up hoping that it has all been some  
kind of dream.

Yet every morning, the distraught emails and texts sent by his family  
only serve to bring home the harsh reality of the Latin farce in which  
he has been trapped for the last 532 days.

He is not alone. His first officer, Yuri Datchenko, is trapped in the  
same situation.

The two were arrested along with the 38,056 dwt bulker B Atlantic on  
August 12, 2007, when Venezuelan divers found 128 kg of cocaine  
clamped to the ship’s hull while it was moored in Lake Maracaibo.

They fear they have been caught up in a political game being played  
out between firebrand Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez and his  
ideological opponents in the US.

“We are completely innocent,” Capt Ustymenko told Lloyd’s List from  
the apartment in which he has been held under police guard for the  
last 18 months.

“I think it is for political reasons,” he added. “Why should we stay  
here for so much time? Because the Venezuelan government wants to  
react about narcotic trafficking. We are not involved in this. How can  
we be, because these drugs were found about 10 m underwater near the  
propeller? That is why the crew and my security officer were not  
involved in this situation. We are innocent.”

In a letter campaign mounted in his defence and designed to attract  
the attention of the Ukrainian government to his plight, Mr Ustimenko  
has alerted authorities to the fact that in ports at Security Level  
One of the International Ship and Port Faciity Security Code, the  
local government should establish security.

“In this case, the responsibility for the security of the ship lays  
with the port,” he said.

The B Atlantic is not an isolated case and Mr Ustymenko and his first  
officer are not the only seafarers to be caught up in the web of drug  
dealers and those who would seek to make political gains from the  
capture of their nefarious cargoes.

Two Greek officers, master Georgios Koutikas and first officer  
Athanasios Ntoustsias, are also being held after 98 kg of cocaine and  
2 kg of heroin were found clamped to the hull of the Astro Saturn, a  
2003-built tanker managed by Kristen Navi, part of the Athens-based  
Angelicoussis Shipping Group

The tactics used by the drug smugglers in Venezuela are similar to  
those deployed in the case of the B Atlantic. It is a technique that  
was popular in Colombian ports during the early part of this decade  
until underwater inspections became compulsory for all ships leaving  
the country’s most important ports.

US officials fear the lack of security in Venezuela has already  
compromised the safety of ships calling at ports in the world’s sixth  
largest net oil exporter.

The US Coast Guard has raised its security guidance for shipowners  
with ships calling in Venezuela, including the posting of visible  
guards at each access point while in a Venezuelan or US port, and  
extra crew members onboard to meet the added requirements.

The US Coast Guard said in the US Federal Register at the weekend that  
these restrictions were being imposed because “ports in Venezuela are  
not maintaining effective anti-terrorism measures”.

Under new guidelines issued by US authorities, vessels must now  
implement measures according to the ship’s security plan equivalent to  
Security Level Two while in a Venezuelan port, which includes  
employing more crew to ensure that each access point to the ship is  
guarded and that the guards have total visibility of the exterior  
(both landside and waterside) of the vessel while it is in a  
Venezuelan port.

Capt Ustimenko’s employer, Stefano Magnelli, director of B Navi, the  
manager of the B Atlantic and a fleet of more than 50 bulkers, has  
already taken the decision to drop Venezuela completely from its  
operations. Angelicoussis ships have also been notably absent from  
Venezuelan ports since November.

“I hope that people learn from this that Venezuela is a place that  
people should avoid,” he said.

The lesson has proved a costly one for the Italian owner. He estimates  
the company has suffered $15m from lost earnings as a result of the B  
Atlantic being held for almost 18 months.

When it was arrested the vessel had a book value “in excess of $20m”,  
he said, but the considerable deterioration of the vessel due to its  
prolonged stay, coupled with the rapid decline in second hand values  
while it has been held, has made the bulker worthless.

Laden with 33,000 tonnes of coal and unable to get class inspectors  
aboard the vessel during the last 18 months, Mr Magnelli has resigned  
himself to losing the ship. He estimates it has a scrap value of $1.5m  
and says that all the costs involved of putting it back to sea would  
be double that amount.

B Navi’s sister company, B Trading, has been unable to discharge the  
cargo, which due to its high sulphur content, could have “created  
serious problems for the structure of the ship”, he says.

“Of course, all the papers — class society papers, flag documents —  
are expired because they did not allow the surveyors onboard, so we  
are exposing everybody to a risk,” he added.

“It would be better to lose the ship than try and get it repaired, but  
I am very much concerned about the crew.”

Capt Ustymenko’s daughter, Natalyia, has praised the company for doing  
“everything possible” to look after her father and Mr Datchenko.

She said the company has paid the bills for the master and his first  
officer to stay in an apartment rather than being held in prison, and  
paid their salaries for the last 18 months.

It has also paid the bills for the 24-hour surveillance offered by the  
Venezuelan National Guard.

Aurelio Fernandez, the Clyde & Co lawyer pursuing the case in  
Venezuela on behalf of B Navi, said that the behaviour of Mr Ustimenko  
and his boss could not be further removed from that of hardened drug  
dealers.

“When you think that drug smugglers have escaped from the highest  
security prisons in Colombia, what type of drug smuggler would sit  
there in an apartment guarded by one policeman for 18 months? And what  
type of drug dealer would go to visit the scene of the crime in a bid  
to get his accomplices released?”

Mr Magnelli described the experience as “a kind of personal disease  
for myself”.

“I have the captain’s daughter asking me every day to do whatever I  
can. We applied to every entity that we know and all I can suggest is  
to contact politicians in the Ukraine to try and bring pressure to  
bare in Venezuela — after all these are two Ukrainian citizens,” he  
said.

Unfortunately, diplomatic relations between the two countries are  
limited.

Ms Ustymenko said her father would never have risked missing his  
grandson, Kirill, grow up for all the money in the world.

“He has been a sailor for 35 years, 24 years as a master. He has  
worked all his life as a sailor. He is not a drug dealer,” she said.

“We have been writing a lot to the president of Ukraine, as well as to  
the representatives of human rights. Unfortunately, we didn’t get any  
answer. They just say that the matter is under consideration.”

Patience with the Venezuelan legal system is running thin, said Mr  
Magnelli. Since October, Capt Ustymenko and his companion have had  
their court appeal suspended more than 10 times, he said.

Mr Fernandez said much of the delay in the case has been due to fears  
from jurors. Nonetheless, he said a jury trial is preferential to  
leaving it solely to a judge to determine the case, due to the  
political influence that could be brought to bear on any magistrate  
ruling on these delicate cases.

“So far we have tried to call 64 different jurors and none of them  
have turned up. As it is a case involving drugs, people are scared of  
retaliation. They are scared of retaliation from drug dealers if they  
find them guilty and from the government if they let them off,” said  
Mr Fernandez.

The Chavez administration has already shown its willingness to  
intervene when judgments in high profile cases go against it.

In the case of Astro Saturn an order was issued to arrest judge Luís  
Velásquez Acuña after he ruled that the tanker should be released  
after being held for 48 days.

The vessel sailed for the US, immediately avoiding the costly delays  
incurred by the owners of B Atlantic before the courts could overturn  
the ruling and issue an international order for the vessel’s arrest.

The two Greek officers remain under arrest in Venezuela awaiting the  
outcome of an investigation into the discovery and fearful of the  
politicisation of their case.

For Capt Ustymenko, the latest date in his drawn out saga is February  
6, when he has been told he will finally have his day in court.

“I am optimistic. Of course we are very angry for this because there  
is no other vessel like the B Atlantic,” Capt Ustymenko said.

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