The Paris MOU port state control organisation has barred a car carrier that skipped a trip to a repair yard in Turkey.

It said the 4,585-ceu City of Antwerp (built 1988) had been detained in Antwerp, Belgium, since 13 October 2015 and left the port on 24 August 2017.

But the vessel failed to call at a yard in Yalova as agreed before 5 September.

As a result, it will be "refused further access to any port and anchorage in the Paris MOU region, except a port and anchorage of the ship’s flag State, until it has provided evidence to the satisfaction of the administration that the ship fully complies with applicable requirements of the conventions. "

The idle car carrier had been due to be auctioned off in June.

TradeWinds has previously reported that it was the last remaining in the fleet of Abou Mehri Lines (AML), controlled by Lebanese shipowner Merhi Abou Merhi.

In May, the US Office of Foreign Assets Control (Ofac) removed sanctions against him and his shipping group, which also includes Abou Merhi Cruises (AMC).

AML and its owner were sanctioned in late 2015 when they were deemed by Ofac to be specially designated narcotics traffickers in accordance with the Foreign Narcotics Kingpin Designation Act.

Abou Merhi was alleged to have ties to a maritime network linked to Lebanese-Colombian drug trafficker and money launderer Ayman Saied Joumaa, and the Joumaa criminal organisation, which Ofac claims has ties to Hezbollah.

These allegations were fiercely refuted by Abou Merhi, who immediately put together a legal defence team consisting of Erich Ferrari of Ferrari & Associates, Robert Teig of Teig Law Corp and Charles Larson of LS2 Group, in a bid to have the allegations dismissed.

In February 2016, the US Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of Virginia confirmed after further investigation that no wrongdoing on the part of Abou Merhi could be found, nor were there any discernible links between the owner, his shipping company and any criminal network.

However, it would take more than a year for the US Department of the Treasury, which Ofac is a part of, to make a final determination that there was no basis upon which to target Abou Merhi and AML for sanctions.

The sanctions took a tough toll on Abou Merhi’s shipping businesses. AML, which prior to being sanctioned operated a fleet of seven ro-ro vessels and pure car carriers on services from Europe to West Africa and the Mediterranean, and that ground to a halt.

Unable to trade, most of the ships were sold or scrapped, leaving only City of Antwerp under its ownership.