El Hiblu 3: More rescued migrants contradict captain's testimony

A court compiling evidence against the three young men accused of hijacking an oil tanker which had rescued them and a boatload of 105 migrants at sea in 2019 has heard more rescued migrants testify that the accused had gone to the bridge at the invitation of the captain.

Mohammed El Sesi from Senegal testified before Magistrate Nadine Lia as the case against the three accused, who were still teenagers when they were arraigned in court on terrorism-related charges in March 2019.

The three teenage asylum-seekers – one from Ivory Coast, aged 15, and two from Guinea, aged 16 and 19 – were arrested over the hijack of the El Hiblu 1, to prevent the captain from taking them back to Libya and handing them over to Libyan authorities.

The Maltese authorities charged the three youths with a series of serious offences, some under counter-terrorism legislation and punishable with life imprisonment.

The three youths deny any wrongdoing and are pleading not guilty.

As the case has progressed over the years, the court has heard a large number of the rescued migrants contradict the version of events initially given to the court by the captain of the ship, in whose April 2019 testimony claimed that the crew had locked themselves in the bridge as the migrants had acted aggressively.

Transcripts of the captain radioing for assistance, telling the Maltese authorities that the vessel was “under piracy” and that some crew members had been injured had been read out in court. The captain was also the only witness to mention injuries in the 3 years of witness testimony.

From the witness stand this afternoon, El Sesi said that “we all stopped the boat,” when they had recognised the Libyan coastline on the horizon. They told the captain to stop the boat, he said. “We all stopped the boat. We told him ‘you are the one who told us that you’re taking us to Europe. This is not Europe, this is Libya.’”

“He needed to respect his word towards us,” said the witness.

Inspector Omar Zammit, prosecuting, asked what the captain had done after that. “He stopped the boat to look at us. We told him, if that’s the way it is, take us back to where you picked us up.’ He said nothing. So we told him `either you take us there or you take us to Europe.’”

“We told him repeatedly that we do not want to go back to Libya…we started to shout ‘we don’t want, we don’t want’.”

Asked why they had shouted, the witness replied that it was because the captain did not appear to have a reaction.

Inspector Zammit asked the witness how many people had been shouting and moving around the boat. “All of us,” the witness replied.

“Where was the captain while you were moving around the boat?” Zammit asked. “He was up there looking at us,” said the witness, referring to the ship’s bridge.

“We were shouting a lot into his ears…’we don’t want’ ‘we don’t want to go back to Libya.”

After this, the captain had told the migrants that they had to calm down, he said. “And we remained calm to listen to him. He said ‘if that’s the way it is, I will take you to Europe.’”

Inspector Zammit asked whether the witness knew why the captain had decided to take them back to Libya, but the reply was negative.

“At a certain moment, he stopped talking to us and went back inside,” The captain was accompanied by one or two crewmembers, he said.

Asked whether the captain had been accompanied by anyone else during the voyage, the witness replied in the affirmative. “Yes. The three persons who worked with us…the persons I mentioned were the persons responding to the captain’s questions when he asked if any of us spoke English…Those were the ones who were translating.”

The inspector pressed the witness on what had needed translating, but the witness explained that the captain spoke to the accused in English. “I do not understand English.” El Sesi recognised the three defendants as the English speaking persons he was speaking of and pointed them out at the request of the court.

“We chose those 3 persons as they were the ones who spoke English,” he repeated.

“During the voyage they were mediators between us and the captain,” he insisted. “The only thing they told us was to remain calm.”

The Inspector asked how he knew that it was the captain who had asked the three youths back into the cabin. “Because they were the mediators,” replied the witness.

The accused said nothing else, the witness said. Not even on the voyage towards Europe.

“We stayed like that until we arrived in Malta.”

The Maltese authorities had later boarded the boat, he said. “They were dressed in a kind of uniform…They told us to remain calm.”

The three accused had been told by the captain to rejoin the group at that stage. “It was at the same moment when the authorities boarded,” El Sesi explained.

Inspector Zammit asked the witness if, earlier that day, he had noted any commotion or disturbance on board when the migrants had spotted the Libyan coast. “We just shouted. Only shouted,”  insisted the man.

Lawyer Cedric Mifsud, defence counsel together with lawyer Gianluca Cappitta, cross-examined the witness.

He asked whether the boat they had left Libya on was a small dinghy. “Yes. It was a rubber boat,” El Sesi replied. He confirmed that there were around a hundred people on board the dinghy and that they had spent around 19 hours at sea on the dinghy before they were rescued by the tanker.

Asked whether the aircraft they spotted had made any sign to communicate with them, he said it hadn’t.

“Am I correct to say that the people on board the ship recognised Libya as you were very close to the shore?” asked the lawyer. “Yes. Even I noticed we were going towards Libya, because I know Libya,” the witness replied.

He also confirmed that the rescued migrants started to panic at that stage because they knew they would be ill-treated in Libya. The three accused had started to calm them down straight away, he said.

They had been chosen both because they spoke English and because they had been calming down the passengers, he said in reply to further questions.

Asked whether it was the captain who had asked the accused to come to the bridge, the witness emphatically agreed. “Of course!”

They did not request to go to the captain, suggested Mifsud. “Yes” replied the witness, also confirming that some of the migrants were threatening to jump overboard when the Libyan coast hove into view.

Pointing out that the witness had described the accused as mediators, the lawyer asked “did any of the migrants tell them ‘hijack the ship’ or ‘take over the ship’?” “No,” replied the man.

Neither were they carrying any weapons, makeshift or otherwise, he added.

They had gone to and from the bridge a few times, he said. There was no commotion, he agreed. “The situation was calm.”

The rescued migrants had only wanted to go to Europe and not specifically to Malta, he confirmed, answering another question.

“Am I correct to say that when it changed direction, the ship went in the opposite direction of Libya?” asked Mifsud.

The witness said he was. “We kept saying ‘Europe’ only,” he said, insisting that there had been no commotion below deck or at the bridge. Only the captain, the navigator and the three accused were on the bridge, he said, but confirmed the presence of other crew members in other places aboard the ship.

“Does he remember any crew members being locked up by the migrants?” asked the lawyer. “Really, I don’t know,” he said, but confirmed that there had been no violence on board. “Shouting only.”

He also confirmed that the three accused had not apprehended any crew members and had not forced them to do anything against their will.

The case continues in April.