Communications between X-Press Pearl and Ports Authority missing
The Colombo Chief Magistrate’s Court has ordered Sea Consortium Lanka ( Pvt) Ltd., the local agent of MV X-Press Pearl -which sank off Colombo last month after a major fire caused the country's worst marine pollution -- to hand over four logbooks from the ship’s control room to the Criminal Investigation Department (CID).
The CID informed court that the ship’s local agent had refused to hand over the logbooks to investigators. The CID said the ship's captain, Tyutkalo Vitaly, had taken the logbooks with him when he and the crew abandoned the vessel and had later handed them over to the local agent. The agent had refused the CID’s request to hand over the logbooks to investigators on the grounds that they were the property of the Marine & Port Authority (MPA) of Singapore and it would not be possible to hand them over without the MPA’s permission.
The logbooks in question are the deck logbook, official logbook, maneuvering order book and the engine logbook, the CID told court.
The ship agent's counsel Anura Meddegoda PC told court it would be improper to hand over the logbooks as they belonged to a foreign authority and handing them over could create a diplomatic issue. Raising objections, Deputy Solicitor General (DSG) Madhawa Tennakoon said it would not create such an issue and that the logbooks were vital for the CID’s probe.
After considering the matter, Colombo Additional Mag i s t r ate Lochana Abeywickrama ordered the agent to hand over the logbooks to the CID.
Court was also told that vital for the investigations were communications between the ship and the Sri Lanka Ports Authority (SLPA) prior to its arrival in Sri Lankan waters on May 19, 2021 and afterwards but an attempt to retrieve them had failed.
Investigators who had tried to access the recordings of communications had found that the VHF channel had not been properly connected to t he Ve s s e l Traffic Management System ( VTMS), meaning that all communications between the period from May 3, 2021 to June 8, 2021 had not been recorded.
The Government Analyst is now carrying out an analysis of data from the VTMS between May 1 and June 10 to ascertain whether the communications had not been recorded owing to a technical fault or if data had been deliberately erased.
The CID also told court it had completed the investigation regarding 14 of the
X- Press Pearl’s crew members and requested that the travel ban imposed on them be lifted. The 14 crew members comprises two Indian, four Filipinos and 10 Chinese.
DSG Tennakoon along with Senior State Counsel Lakmini Girihagama and Fazly Razeek and State Counsel Lakmini Dissanayake, Malik Azeez and Lahiru Jayamanne appeared for the Attorney General.
Meanwhile, the process of providing compensation to fishermen who were affected by the X-Press Pearl disaster has now begiun.
From this week, compensation for the fishermen will be deposited in their bank accounts. Rs 420 million from the interim claim settled by the ship’s insurers will be utilised for this purpose. Beneficiaries will be verified by the Fisheries Department, Divisional Secretariats and fishermen’s associations, the government said.
On Wednesday, Fisheries State Minister Kanchana Wijesekara announced on Twitter that Rs 124 million had been released to the district secretariats in Gampaha, Colombo and Kalutara to pay compensation from the interim claim. The Gampaha District Secretariat received Rs 100 million of the funds while Colombo received Rs 20 million and Kalutara Rs 4 million.