Five crew of anti-migrant ship claim asylum in port
Hard-right activists clash with “liberal NGOS” over allegations that Sri Lankans paid for passage to Italy
A SHIP chartered by hard-right activists intending to highlight the threat of people-smuggling in the Mediterranean was detained in Cyprus yesterday amid allegations that some of its Sri Lankan crew had paid smugglers to help them escape to Europe.
The allegations, strongly denied by the Defend Europe group that chartered the C-star vessel, were the subject of a court hearing in northern Cyprus yesterday after five of the Sri Lankan crew claimed political asylum on the island. The row, which was picked up by liberal groups hostile to the Defend Europe project, saw the Cstar’s captain and his deputy being arrested and detained on suspicion of forging documents after it was alleged that some of the Sri Lankan crew were travelling on false papers.
But late last night, C-star and its crew were released by Turkish Cypriot authorities and escorted out of territorial waters by a coastguard after the authorities decided there was insufficient evidence to prosecute.
The episode is the latest hitch in the troubled passage of the C-star, which has been sailing in the Mediterranean to highlight what activists claim is a failed EU migration policy that is serving only to fuel the people-smuggling trade based in Libya.
Court documents seen by The Daily Telegraph showed that Alexander Schleyer, a prominent German Right- wing activist and Sven Tomas Egerstrom, a Swedish national, who owns the ship, had both been remanded into police custody. A statement by Defend Europe said that the C-star crew had included 20 “apprentice” sailors who were accruing hours for their diplomas and had been due to return home from Egypt, but when this proved impossible, disembarked in Cyprus.
Fifteen of the 20 flew out of the country, while the remaining five Sri Lankans claimed asylum. The Refugee Rights Association, a local NGO, claimed the Sri Lankans said they had paid $10,000 to be taken to Italy, a claim rejected by Defend Europe, which said the five had been enticed into claiming asylum by the NGOS.
Faika Deniz Pasha, an associate of the Refugee Rights Association in northern Cyprus, told The Daily Telegraph that five of the Sri Lankans had claimed they were not sailors but had paid to board the ship to get to Italy.
“They told my organisation and the police they paid something corresponding to $10,000 (£8,926) in local currency to get to Italy,” she said, dismissing as “ridiculous and offensive” Defend Europe’s claims that her NGO had bribed the Sri Lankans.
Local media sources in Cyprus last night said that the five in question had been granted 10-day visas while their claims were assessed, and that the court had made no firm determination whether or not their papers had been forged. Mr Schleyer is no stranger to the sea, having spent two years on a German naval intelligence ship before going into politics in Austria, where he was a parliamentary assistant in the far-right Austrian Freedom Party until images emerged of him posing in front of the German imperial flag.
For weeks, the activists from Europe and abroad have been crowdfunding to raise money to go on an anti-ngo mission they said was aimed at patrolling and monitoring the migrant route off Libya. Their original plan was to bring the C-star to Sicily in mid-july.
However, the mayor of Catania, the Sicilian port where refugees are being landed in large numbers, has requested authorities not to allow the Cstar to dock in Catania due to concerns over public order.