EasyJet boss acquitted of manslaughter

By Jean Christou

UK-BASED EasyJet’s Cypriot owner Stelios Haji-Ioannou and his father Loucas were yesterday acquitted by an Italian court of charges relating to a 1991 Cypriot-registered tanker explosion.

The explosion killed six crew and resulted in the Mediterranean’s worst ecological disaster.

At the centre of the case was the allegation that he and his father had kept one of their vessels, the Cyprus-flagged Amoco Haven, in such bad repair that it blew up.

Court officials in Genoa said the verdict had been reached after more than 25 hours of deliberation.

Prosecutors had asked for seven year sentences for manslaughter for both father and son whose company owned the Amoco Haven.

Also on trial was Christos Doules, former director of the shipping firm, for whom prosecutors had sought a sentence of two years and four months.

All three men were facing charges of manslaughter and intimidating and attempting to bribe witnesses.

Doules was also acquitted, and a civil suit for compensation was thrown out. The judge’s reasons for absolving the men will be made public in 90 days, reports from Genoa said.

The ship had been carrying one million barrels of Iranian crude when it was rocked by an explosion on April 11 1991. It sank after burning for three days.

A large part of the oil was believed to have burned off before the ship sank, though some 14,000 tonnes spilled into the Mediterranean.

The charges have always been strenuously denied by both father and son, who say their case was bolstered by an expert’s report in a related civil case which lay blame at the feet of the ship’s chief officer.

In addition to the manslaughter charges, Haji-Ioannou had been accused of having ordered Doules to threaten two of the survivors of the disaster in an attempt to get them to change their evidence.

Meanwhile, unconfirmed reports in Thursday’s edition of Lloyds List said the Italian government and representatives of the International Oil Pollution Compensation (IOPC) fund were close to reaching a preliminary agreement on the amount of compensation to be paid for pollution damage.

The Italian government had requested over $500 million in fines for environmental damage, eight times more than what the IOPC Fund was offering.

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.