Gibraltar has defended its actions in seizing a VLCC suspected of breaching European Union sanctions against Syria.
In a statement on Friday, it said the decision to detain the 301,000-dwt Grace 1 (built 1997) on Thursday was based solely on it having reasonable grounds to believe that the vessel was committing a breach.
“There has been no political request at any time from any government that the Gibraltar government should act or not act, on one basis or another,” it said.
It added that the information that related to the alleged Syrian destination of the vessel and its cargo legally required Gibraltar to take the necessary action once the vessel entered the jurisdiction.
This was backed up by one shipping lawyer, who told TradeWinds that the UK authorities were obliged under EU law to seize the cargo.
The Gibraltar administration said: “The decisions of Her Majesty's Government of Gibraltar were taken totally independently, based on breaches of existing law and not at all based on extraneous political considerations.
“These important decisions about breaches of our laws were certainly not decisions taken at the political behest or instruction of any other state or of any third party.
“In nations governed by the rule of law, decisions about the application of laws relating to what are potentially criminal offences are decisions made based on facts and legal analysis and are not decisions made on the basis of political requests, whoever the requesting party may be.”
It was revealed yesterday that flag state of Panama had been alerted about the ship’s activities in May and removed it from its register.
