Captain Jasprit Chawla, second from right, and Chief Officer Syam Chetan, third from right, pose for a photo with their families after being released on bail from the Cheongju Detention Center, Jan. 16. The two men will continue to stay in Korea until a final ruling is reached by the Supreme Court. / Courtesy of V. Ships |
By Michael Ha
Staff Reporter
Two Indian seafarers who had been found guilty by an appeals court of criminal negligence in connection with the Taean oil spill incident are now out on bail.
Captain Jasprit Chawla and Chief Officer Syam Chetan were released from a local detention center last week when the Supreme Court granted their request for bail, set at $10,000 for each officer.
V. Ships, a shipping management firm and employer of the two men, issued a statement welcoming their release, saying ``senior management and all trade associations thank the Supreme Court in Seoul for this decision and the Korean government, for the first positive steps in resolving this case.''
The case has attracted attention from abroad, particularly from international trade unions and shipping management groups, who strongly objected to the appeal court's ruling. Trade unions abroad have described the verdict as ``scapegoating'' by the local judicial system and stated that the oil tanker and its crew were ``passive victims'' in the collision with an oncoming barge.
The two seafarers have appealed their jail sentences and will continue to stay in Korea until the nation's top court reaches its verdict sometime before June.
The two men were sentenced last December for their involvement in polluting Korea's western coast in December 2007 when their oil tanker was hit by a runaway barge and spilled more than 10,000 tons of crude oil into costal waters. The barge was being towed by two tugs under severe storm conditions when one of the hawsers connecting it to them severed, leaving it adrift. It then smashed into the side of the fully loaded oil tanker, Hebei Spirit, which was at anchor.
The resulting oil spill damaged the Taean region's ecosystem and tourism along the country's pristine west coast beaches, through large-scale pollution, which devastated the livelihood of fishing communities in the area.
After being hit by the barge, the oil tanker's outdated hull structure may also have contributed to the severity of the spill.
Lloyd's Register-Fairplay is an international firm that provides maritime information to the shipping industry and assigns ship-registration numbers. According to the firm, Hebei Spirit was built with a single hull. An international ban on such ships is due to start in 2010. Modern tankers are fitted with two hulls to cut the risk of an oil spill but are more expensive to hire.
In December, the appeals court gave prison sentences ranging from eight months to 18 months to three Korean seafarers in connection with the collision.
Additionally, the appeals court also found Capt. Chawla and Chief Officer Chetan guilty of criminal negligence and misjudgment, reversing a lower court's decision that found the two men innocent of criminal wrongdoing.
The appeals court argued that the two seafarers had made an error in that they could have avoided a collision with the oncoming barge by proceeding at full speed or half speed dragging the ship's anchor at eight-minute intervals from the tow wire's snapping to the barge battering the oil tanker hull.
Capt. Chawla was sentenced to 18 months, while Chief Officer Chetan was sentenced to eight months, but the ruling was met with condemnation from the shipping community abroad, including the International Transport Workers Federation (ITF), a group of 654 unions representing 4.5 million maritime and transport workers in 148 countries.
``Shipping industry bodies that have campaigned for the release of the Hebei Spirit officers in Korea have responded positively to the two men's release on bail," according to the ITF.
The group's spokesman, commenting on the release of the two men, told The Korea Times, ``We greatly appreciate this decision and consider it an enlightened one. The ITF and its partners in the `Free the Hebei Two' campaign see their release on bail as the first positive step towards resolving the case. We pledge to continue to aid the two men until they are once again free, innocent and back with their families,'' the spokesman said.
The oil spill was and is a desperately serious matter for those affected, including thousands of people living or working in the area, the spokesperson said. ``They need compensation and help, and we can only hope to understand how they feel about the disaster.''
But he argued, ``The need to help them and learn how to prevent such an accident happening again is not furthered by criminalizing two men for doing their jobs to the best of their abilities on a ship that was safely anchored when it was hit by another vessel.''
He also commented on the appellate court ruling that overturned the lower court verdict, which found the two men innocent. It determined that the captain of Heibei Spirit could have avoided the collision, but the ITF spokesperson noted, ``you can ask almost any serving seafarer or maritime expert worldwide the same question and the answer you'll get is that there was no time to avoid being hit.''
The crew, he said, ``being the professionals they are, did what they could, indeed what anyone could, to stop the situation from getting worse. We struggle to think of a case where the officers of a ship that was hit by another vessel whilst it was at anchor were prosecuted.''
The Taean spill was the worst oil spill incident in the country's history, surpassing a 1995 accident in South Korean waters when 5,000 tons of oil leaked in the Yeosu region, 455 kilometers south of Seoul. About 2.2 million people, or 4 percent of the total population, participated in the Taean cleanup, according to news accounts.
It is estimated that more than $500 million has been spent on the oil spill. Last year, the Ministry for Health, Welfare and Family Affairs also announced an additional three trillion won in restoration and compensation. The Hebei Spirit leak was about a third of the size of the 1989 Exxon Valdez spill of crude oil onto Alaskan shores, the costliest on record.
michaelha@koreatimes.co.kr
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