CYPRUS may play a crucial part in determining how justice is served for a tragic accident at sea last year that cost the lives of three Americans, in an affair complicated by issues of jurisdictions.
In August 2001, the tanker Virgo collided with the Starbound fishing vessel some 200 kilometres off the coast of New England, in international waters.
The Virgo is registered in Cyprus. Her owner and crew are Russian. The ship’s underwriters are British. The fishing vessel and its crew are American and its underwriters are probably American as well. The ship is moored in a Canadian port.
Cypriot authorities were angered at Canada and the United States when their law enforcement officials boarded the Russian tanker and initiated investigations. The shipping department argued that the US-Canadian investigation was in breach of the UN Maritime Convention.
US authorities charged the captain, the second mate and the wheelsman of the Virgo with involuntary manslaughter and other charges. The owner of the fishing vessel and the families of two of the three deceased crewmen have filed suit in the Federal Court of Canada.
A source at the foreign ministry told the Cyprus Mail that the Russian tanker owners had awarded compensation to the victims’ families, adding that the sole issue now pending was the serving of justice.
No court has yet decided the facts of the case. The Virgo may be the ship that collided with the Starbound, yet it is also thought possible that another ship was in collision with the fishing vessel. Even assuming that the Virgo is the right ship, many questions remain, both with respect to jurisdiction and liability.
The United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, 1982 states that the only nations who may institute criminal and disciplinary proceedings against a crewmember in a collision case are the flag state of the ship and the crewmembers’ own countries. Cyprus has signed and ratified this treaty, so has the Russian Federation. Canada has signed it but not ratified it. The United States has neither signed nor ratified it. Many commentators, however, maintain that the convention now forms part of customary international law.
But the other peculiarity in the Virgo case is that the accused are not within the jurisdiction of the victims’ country.
The American authorities in the Virgo case, however, are not relying on the international conventions, but on the Treaty between the Government of Canada and the Government of United States of America on Mutual Legal Assistance in Criminal Matters.
Canada brought the terms of the treaty into force with the Mutual Legal Assistance in Criminal Matters Act. The agreement only permits the transfers of persons in custody when the person in custody consents to the transfer.
The Americans need to use the Canadian Extradition Act to authorize the transfer of individuals to the United States to stand trial, in this case, for involuntary manslaughter and other offences.
Press reports said that the US government had asked Cyprus to sign a similar mutual legal assistance treaty. The issue is pending, as the ministers of Foreign Affairs and Communications have submitted to the Cabinet a proposal on how the government should handle the matter.
The Cyprus Mail is the only English-language daily newspaper published in Cyprus. It was established in 1945 and today, with its popular and widely-read website, the Cyprus Mail is among the most trusted news sites in Cyprus. The newspaper is not affiliated with any political parties and has always striven to maintain its independence. Over the past 70-plus years, the Cyprus Mail, with a small dedicated team, has covered momentous events in Cyprus’ modern history, chronicling the last gasps of British colonial rule, Cyprus’ truncated independence, the coup and Turkish invasion, and the decades of negotiations to stitch the divided island back together, plus a myriad of scandals, murders, and human interests stories that capture the island and its -people. Observers describe it as politically conservative.
