El Hiblu trial: Two accused will be tried separately from third man who absconded

The Criminal Court will try two of the young men indicted for allegedly hijacking an oil tanker that had rescued them, separately from a third co-accused, who the police say, has absconded.

The two men, Amara Kromah and Abdalla Bari, are accused of hijacking the El Hiblu 1 and coercing its captain into not transporting them -together with 108 other people his crew had plucked from the sea - back to Libya, where they faced persecution and torture. The men deny the charges, insisting they had acted as interlocutors between the ship's captain and the rest of the migrants.

The Maltese authorities caused an international outcry by insisting on defining the incident as “piracy” and charging the three youths - who were just 15, 16 and 19 at the time - with serious offences, some under counter-terrorism legislation.

The three defendants were indicted last November, a move which was condemned by several international human rights bodies, including Amnesty International and Sea Watch, who had repeatedly called upon the Maltese authorities to drop the charges.

In September 2023, the magistrate presiding over the compilation of evidence issued international and European arrest warrants for Koni Tiemoko Abdoul Khader, from the Ivory Coast, after her court was informed that he had not signed his bail book for six weeks and was presumed to have absconded.

Madame Justice Consuelo Scerri Herrera, after hearing Inspector Omar Zammit testify that to date, the authorities had no information about Khader’s whereabouts, upheld the request to separate the cases.

Lawyer Malcolm Mifsud told the court that his clients, Abdalla and Amara, were declaring that they were notified with the AG’s application for them to be tried separately and were not objecting to the request.

The case was adjourned to 12 March.

Lawyers Neil Falzon, Cedric Mifsud, Carla Camilleri and Gianluca Cappitta are also assisting the accused men.