Libya follows up on seized Turkish ship 'thoroughly'

CAIRO – 12 January 2018: The Libyan Armed Forces announced in a Thursday statement that it is thoroughly following up on the Turkish freighter that got seized while sailing to Libya.

According to the Athens-Macedonian NewsAgency (AMNA), the Thurkish freighter, loaded with 29 containers of explosives and other materials that could be used to construct bombs used in terrorist attacks, was siezed by the Greek coastguard on Wednessday.

“The ship had been a moving bomb that could have had unforeseeable repercussions on people and the marine,” the Greek coastguard said to AMNA.

The general command of the Libyan Armed Forces called upon human rights organizations, authorities, the UN, the Arab League and the UN Security Council to deem this as a war crime that is being sponsored and committed by Turkey and all the involved parties.

The Libyan Army’s general command further added that such actions affirm earlier announcements and statements about Turkey’s cynical role in supporting terrorism, not only in Libya, but in the whole region.


Statement of the Libyan Army

A special operations squad seized the vessel and arrested the freighter's eight-person crew, which included two Ukrainian nationals, five Indian nationals and one Albanian, in waters off Agios Nikolaos, Crete, a few days earlier.


The seized possessions found on the Turkish ship

The skipper of the crew has admitted after questioning that he had been ordered by the ship's owner to sail to the Libyan port of Misurata and not to Djibouti, the destination listed in the ship's itinerary.



According to the ship’s bill of lading, the cargo had been loaded in the Turkish ports of Mersin and Iskenderun and was destined for Djibouti and Oman. No shipping maps were found on the ship’s logbook for the Djibouti and Oman areas, the coastguard said.

The European Union and the United Nations imposed arms embargoes that have prohibited the sale, supply or transfer of arms to Libya since 2011.



The eight-member crew has been arrested and will appear before a prosecutor on Thursday, according to Reuters.