Foreign Desk Report
JAKARTA: Indonesia has deported the captains of two oil tankers belonging to Iran and Panama and escorted their vessels out of its waters over the weekend after a court ruling earlier in the week found the two men guilty of violating the country’s navigational rules, Indonesian authorities said on Sunday.
Indonesia’s Maritime Security Agency (Bakamla) Spokesman Col. Wisnu Pramandita told Arab News that the tankers were freed on Friday after the immigration department issued a deportation order for the two captains following their convictions. Pramandita said the department handed each man his passport onboard a Bakamla vessel, which then took them to their respective ships.
“Bakamla ship KN Pulau Dana-323 monitored the whole process and was escorting MT Horse and MT Freya as they began sailing out of Indonesia to make sure they left Indonesian waters,” he said.
On Tuesday, a district court in Batam, in the province of Riau Islands, where the tankers had been impounded for four months, sentenced Mehdi Monghasemjahromi, captain of the Iran-flagged MT Horse and Chen Yo Qun, captain of the Panama-flagged MT Freya, with a suspended one-year prison term subject to probation for two years.
