‘Hebei hogwash’ - Shipmanager's, Associations, Bodies Express Anger, Ridiculing the verdict

“Utterly unreasonable”, “irrational” and “eye-popping hogwash” is how V.Ships’ Bob Bishop has labelled the decision by a South Korean court to jail officers of the Hebei Spirit.

The shipmanager’s chief executive vowed to appeal Wednesday’s “ridiculous” judgements which have raised a cacophony of vitriol from industry bodies.
“How does one begin?” Bishop posited when asked for his response to the jailing for 18 months of the 270,000-dwt tanker’s Indian master Jasprit Chawla and for eight months of chief officer Syam Chetan.
“These guys are innocent and they have been locked up to appease public opinion, is all one can assume,” Glasgow-based Bishop retorted.
The officers of the 1993-built VLCC, owned by China’s Hosco and which spilled 10,500 tonnes of crude oil into the Yellow Sea after being struck by a falling crane from a Samsung-owned barge, were initially cleared of any wrongdoing by a lower court. The South Korean appeal court, however, later overturned the decision which placed the blame for the December 2007 incident almost entirely on Samsung’s door.
“This is all about pandering to the Korean public to make it look like Samsung was not totally culpable.”
“It is a straightforward publicity trick to march them out of court in handcuffs. This is going back to the times of barbarity.”
Bishop was baffled as to the continued detention of the officers over the course of the trial saying “they have posed no security risk. V.Ship, [the officers themselves], the Indian government, the owners have given all possible guarantees that they would return [for trial if allowed back home]”.
Although Bishop ventured that the company would “definitely be appealing” the sentences, he aired misgivings about the South Korean justice system.
“We’ve now passed from the realms of rational action to the realms of irrational action,” he said before adding, “One has to follow due process in large part because there is no other.”
Wednesday’s development also drew the ire of the International Transport Workers’ Federation (ITF) which called the judgements “incomprehensively vindictive”.
In a scathing riposte to the court’s ruling entitled ‘No justice for Hebei Two’, ITF maritime coordinator Stephen Cotton said: “This is not justice. It’s not even something close. What we have seen today is scapegoating, criminalisation and a refusal to consider the wider body of evidence that calls into question the propriety of the court.
“This decision is incomprehensibly vindictive and will impact on all professional mariners.”
Like Bishop, Cotton pledged the ITF’s support to the jailed seafarers saying: “The one thing we can promise today is that this isn’t over. The campaign to free these men will go on growing until the justice that was so glaringly absent in this court today is done.”

Guy Morel, general secretary of shipmanagement body InterManager, called the punishment meted out to the Hebei Spirit officers “a tragedy for the whole industry”.
Morel added: “It is unacceptable that these two dedicated seafarers should be treated in this way. They have behaved professionally throughout this sorry affair and are being made scapegoats by South Korea.
“These men followed correct procedures and ensured lives were protected but have been unfairly criminalised as a result. We believe that the evidence against them was flawed and manipulated and we will campaign vigorously on their behalf to overturn this unfair decision.”