VLADIVOSTOK, February 18 (RIA Novosti) - The captain
of a foreign ship, which sank with the loss of eight lives
during a storm off Russia's Pacific Coast over the weekend, had
ordered the crew to cross the Russian border fearing a trial,
local prosecutors said.
The Sierra Leone flagged cargo ship sank in the Sea of
Japan 50 miles from the port of Nakhodka in the Primorye
Territory. The tragedy occurred after the ship left the Russian
port having tried to deliver a consignment of "poor-quality"
rice to a Russian company that refused to accept the goods and
threatened to take legal action and have the vessel seized.
The ship owner, a Hong Kong based company, ordered the
captain to leave the Russian port without prior permission from
the Russian authorities. The ship crossed the Russian border
illegally, said Natalya Rondaleva, spokesperson for the Federal
Security Service Primorye.
Two Russian border guard ships were sent to stop the
vessel, but the captain ignored the warning signals. "Border
guards fired warning shots but even after that the vessel
failed to stop. After that more direct shots were fired," an
unnamed source told RIA Novosti.
The ship later issued a distress signal when the vessel
started to take on water and 16 crew members, all of them
Indonesian and Chinese nationals, were forced to get into two
life rafts. Half of them were picked up by a Russian vessel
while an attempt to save the other eight sailors failed when
they were washed out to sea and drowned.
An investigation into the actions of the Russian border
guard vessels has been sent to military prosecutors.
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