FOUR SAILORS FACE OIL STEALING CHARGES

FOUR Filipino sailors have been arrested for allegedly stealing 73,900 barrels of crude oil valued at $7 million and belonging to the Saltpond Offshore Producing Company Ltd.
A fifth suspect, Elpifanio M. Moran Jnr, is said to be at large in connection with the same offence.
Those arrested are Ileofonso Pagay Pama, engineer; Felix Borre Climaco, seaman; Leonardo Planes Abrenica and Damilo Bagasot Bueno, both captains.
They were arrested in Nigeria through the assistance of Interpol Nigeria and brought to Ghana to face trial and they were sent to the Regional Tribunal last week to be remanded but their counsel raised an objection that he had filed a habeas corpus writ for the suspects to be produced before the Fast Track High Court.
Following that, the suspects were discharged and taken away into custody by the police and the case handed over to the Attorney General’s (AG) Office.
A state attorney from the AG’s office today went to the Fast Track High Court to take a date until February 26, 2008, on the grounds that the habeas corpus writ was received at short notice.
Counsel for the suspects, Alhaji Musah Ahmed, was not in court yesterday but when he was reached for his reaction to the new development, he declined to elaborate and said what had been done to his clients amounted to hostage taking and kidnap.
According to the facts of the case, in November last year, the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of the Saltpond Offshore Company, Mr Quincy Sintim-Aboagye, contracted a vessel, the MT Emerald , through its agents, NEPS, in Nigeria to cart crude oil from Saltpond to the Tema Oil Refinery (TOR).
The vessel was said to have set sail under the command of Moran Jr, with the other suspects as the crew.
According to the prosecution, on December 9, 2007 the crew sailed the vessel out of Ghana’s territorial waters and went away with the crude oil. A report was made to Interpol Ghana, which, with assistance from its Nigerian counterparts, arrested the suspects in Nigeria and brought them to Ghana.
The crude oil is yet to be retrieved.
However, the version of the story as stated by counsel for the suspects earlier at the Regional Tribunal is different.
According to him, the suspects were the wrong persons who had been arrested and that they were the crew for two different vessels, namely, the MT Stream and the MT Silver, which were sister vessels of the MT Emerald, of which Moran Jnr was the captain.
Investigations by the Daily Graphic indicated that sister vessels could be arrested for offences committed by a vessel but not its crew, who had not committed any offence.