Croatian seafarer, Captain Marko Bekavac, who was accused in Turkey of cocaine smuggling, after cocaine was found on his ship Phoenician M in the Turkish port of Eregli last year, and the first officer of the ship were on Monday extrajudicially sentenced to 30 years each and remain in Turkish prison.
The other eight seafarers were acquitted, the general secretary of the Croatian Seafarers’ Union, Neven Melvan, said in a telephone conversation with Hina, stressing that this is not the moment to be discouraged, that we should seriously prepare for the appeal and the second-instance procedure. He added that earlier in similar cases the first-instance verdicts were drastic.
On Monday, members of Captain Bekavac’s family – his wife and brother, as well as Croatian ambassador Hrvoje Cvitanović, charge d’affaires at the embassy in Ankara Mario Zadro, and colleagues from the International Transport Workers’ Federation (ITF) were also present at the trial.
We are all in shock, it is obvious that the command responsibility is being taken because the commander and the first officer are being targeted, said Melvan, adding that the explanation of the verdict has not been read and will be submitted in written form. The legal battle should continue until the acquittal, he emphasized.
Captain Marko Bekavac was charged because last year cocaine was found in the cargo of his ship Phoenician M in the Turkish port of Eregli. He has been in the Turkish remand prison in Ankara since October last year, when the police found 137 kilograms of cocaine on a ship carrying coal from Colombia and sailing under the Panamanian flag.
At that time, 10 sailors were arrested, six from the Philippines, one each from Finland, Poland and Russia, and Bekavac, whom the Turkish authorities consider responsible by virtue of command responsibility. The Phoenician M was allowed to sail with the remaining crew.
Melvan asked for additional cameras and insurance, the company refused
The trial began in mid-June, all seafarers pleaded not guilty and presented their defense. The defenders, a law firm from Istanbul, were hired by the company, and each seafarer got his own representative.
During the proceedings, Melvan pointed out that the captain of the ship, before entering the Colombian port and before loading the cargo, requested additional cameras and security, but the company did not respond or provide this, as well as that a direct link between the crew and narcotics was not established or proven.
He emphasized that Bekavac had informed the police in Turkey before arriving at the Turkish port that it was possible for such a thing to be found on the ship, since it did not have all the conditions for safe loading of the cargo.
Croatian Prime Minister Andrej Plenković met with Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan at the end of June and advocated for Bekavac, saying that Croatia expects the Turkish authorities to act fairly in his case and that the Croatian Government will continue to provide the Croatian citizen with diplomatic, consular, legal and any possible help, Hina writes.
