Detained tanker crew during pandemic to receive $6m after rights breach

Derek Achong

The cap­tain and crew of a Pana­man­ian-reg­is­tered oil and chem­i­cal tanker, who were de­tained for two months in 2020, ex­posed to Covid-19 and de­nied treat­ment, and were blocked from com­mu­ni­cat­ing with their fam­i­lies, are set to re­ceive over $6 mil­lion in com­pen­sa­tion.

On Thurs­day, High Court Judge West­min James or­dered the com­pen­sa­tion as he up­held a law­suit brought by the 13 crew mem­bers from South and Latin Amer­i­ca over the treat­ment they re­ceived from lo­cal law en­force­ment of­fi­cers while they and the ves­sel were held for sus­pect­ed drug traf­fick­ing.

Jus­tice James found that their rights un­der sev­er­al sec­tions of the Con­sti­tu­tion were breached and or­dered $450,000 for each of the men.

Jus­tice James said: “This trans­for­ma­tion of the ves­sel from a place of work and res­i­dence in­to a “prison at sea” in­fect­ed with a life-threat­en­ing virus con­sti­tutes a grave vi­o­la­tion of the State’s cus­to­di­al du­ties.”

“The State’s con­duct, rang­ing from the reck­less in­tro­duc­tion of a virus in­to a vul­ner­a­ble, iso­lat­ed pop­u­la­tion to the sub­se­quent armed ob­struc­tion of es­sen­tial med­ical aid, rep­re­sents a pro­found fail­ure of the State’s cus­to­di­al oblig­a­tions,” he added.

Ac­cord­ing to the ev­i­dence in the case, the Star Bal­boa ar­rived in T&T wa­ters in Sep­tem­ber 2020 to dis­pose of garbage and re­stock pro­vi­sions.

The ves­sel was briefly ar­rest­ed by lo­cal ship­ping agents for an out­stand­ing bill, but the is­sue was quick­ly re­solved.

Short­ly af­ter, a large team of po­lice, im­mi­gra­tion, cus­toms, and coast guard of­fi­cers ex­e­cut­ed a search war­rant for dan­ger­ous drugs, which was re­port­ed­ly based on in­tel­li­gence passed on by an in­ter­na­tion­al al­ly.

The ves­sel’s own­ers hired mar­itime law spe­cial­ist Nyree Al­fon­so and crim­i­nal de­fence at­tor­ney Sophia Chote, SC, to rep­re­sent their staff.

Both at­tor­neys were re­port­ed­ly threat­ened by the of­fi­cers af­ter they at­tempt­ed to board the ves­sel to wit­ness the search and re­quest sight of the war­rant.

The of­fi­cers took al­most two weeks to con­duct a com­pre­hen­sive search of the ves­sel, in­clud­ing send­ing divers to in­spect its hull and or­der­ing the emp­ty­ing of its bal­last tanks in ap­par­ent con­tra­ven­tion of in­ter­na­tion­al mar­itime law.

Most mem­bers of the crew, who were con­fined to the ship, con­tract­ed Covid-19, with the cap­tain hav­ing to be tak­en to the Cau­ra Hos­pi­tal for treat­ment based on the sever­i­ty of his med­ical con­di­tion.

The re­main­ing crew mem­bers, who had to re­cov­er from the dead­ly virus while quar­an­tined on the ship, claimed they were de­nied med­ical sup­plies at gun­point.

They sug­gest­ed that they con­tract­ed the virus from the of­fi­cers, who did not wear masks or oth­er pro­tec­tive equip­ment.

They claimed that their cell­phones and lap­tops were seized, pre­vent­ing them from con­tact­ing rel­a­tives, and were even­tu­al­ly re­turned in un­usu­al con­di­tion.

The ship was even­tu­al­ly re­leased in No­vem­ber af­ter noth­ing il­le­gal was found.

In de­cid­ing the case, Jus­tice James de­clined to con­sid­er the le­gal­i­ty of the search war­rant be­cause the own­er of the ves­sel, who had the le­gal abil­i­ty to chal­lenge such, pulled out of the case.

De­spite tak­ing that po­si­tion, Jus­tice James went on to rule that the con­duct of the of­fi­cers in ex­e­cut­ing the war­rant was un­law­ful.

He re­ject­ed claims from the State that the men were not ar­rest­ed and de­tained but rather were su­per­vised by the of­fi­cers, as they were free to con­tin­ue to live aboard the ves­sel.

Stat­ing that the ac­tions of the of­fi­cers ex­ceed­ed “su­per­vi­sion”, Jus­tice James said: “They amount to com­plete State con­trol over the Claimant’s lib­er­ty.”

He found that their de­ten­tion was un­law­ful and un­rea­son­able af­ter an ini­tial search yield­ed no drugs.

“There is no ev­i­dence that the Claimants were in­di­vid­u­al­ly sus­pect­ed of crim­i­nal con­duct, that on­go­ing de­ten­tion was nec­es­sary to pre­serve ev­i­dence, or that less in­tru­sive mea­sures were con­sid­ered,” he said.

He al­so took is­sue with the fact that they were not in­formed of their le­gal rights, de­nied com­mu­ni­ca­tion de­vices, and de­nied ac­cess to their lawyers.

“The Court there­fore con­cludes that the Claimants’ de­ten­tion was ar­bi­trary, ex­ces­sive, and un­con­sti­tu­tion­al, in breach of their rights to lib­er­ty and the pro­tec­tion of the law,” Jus­tice James said.

Jus­tice James al­so found that the of­fi­cers’ han­dling of the crew’s Covid-19 in­fec­tions con­sti­tut­ed cru­el, in­hu­mane and de­grad­ing pun­ish­ment.

“Keep­ing un­in­fect­ed crew mem­bers con­fined with those who were pos­i­tive, threat­en­ing hos­tile board­ing with as­sault ri­fles when they were ill, and ini­tial­ly ob­struct­ing the de­liv­ery of pri­vate med­ical sup­plies re­flects an “un­car­ing and care­less…aban­don­ment” of the Claimant’s in­her­ent dig­ni­ty,” he said.

Jus­tice James al­so found that the State breached their rights in deny­ing them com­mu­ni­ca­tion de­vices dur­ing the lengthy pe­ri­od.

“By strip­ping the crew of all com­mu­ni­ca­tions de­vices, the State ren­dered them in­com­mu­ni­ca­do for weeks, pre­vent­ing them from con­tact­ing their fam­i­lies dur­ing emer­gen­cies or man­ag­ing es­sen­tial fi­nan­cial oblig­a­tions like rent and util­i­ty pay­ments,” he said.

Jus­tice James or­dered $275,000 in dam­ages to each crew mem­ber for un­law­ful de­ten­tion, and $25,000 for the un­law­ful seizure of their prop­er­ty. He al­so or­dered $150,000 in vin­di­ca­to­ry dam­ages based on the se­ri­ous breach­es in the case.

The State was or­dered to pay the group’s le­gal costs for the lit­i­ga­tion.

The group was al­so rep­re­sent­ed by Pe­ter Carter and Asif Ho­sein-Shah. The State was rep­re­sent­ed by Justin Phelps, SC, Michelle Ben­jamin, and Adi­ta Ram­du­lar.