Two seafarers have been killed by gunfire on a tanker in Argentina, and another seafarer is under arrest on suspicion of shooting them.
Police said Carlos Lima, 52, shot dead the master and first officer of the 17,000-dwt Ayane (built 2010) on Friday off the coast of Buenos Aires, MercoPress reported.
The dead men were named as captain Alejandro Daniel Garcia, 39, and first officer Juan Alfonso Pegasano, 48.
Lima turned himself in after the attack.
According to police, the seafarer told the Maritime Traffic Service: "The captain and the first officer are dead. I killed them and I am going to surrender. So I want a coast guard to come and arrest me."
Anchored near Punta Lara
The tragic incident occurred on Friday evening after the tanker had left Buenos Aires with 21 crew members, all Argentineans, on 11 October.
The ship was anchored near Punta Lara.
Coast Guard officers boarded the Ayane on Saturday and arrested Lima, but the gun was not found.
A Coast Guard spokesman said: "It is not entirely clear how the events happened, since it is believed that the attacker could have suffered a psychotic breakdown."
The Coast Guard added that Lima had previously been "a very calm person, so there was no type of problem at any time".
The rest of the crew managed to isolate themselves elsewhere in the vessel.
It is not clear how Lima got a gun on board.
The tanker is listed as owned by Bahia Grande of Argentina, which has been contacted for comment.
Lima, the third officer, is a former Buenos Aires police lieutenant who was dismissed in 2007 for undisclosed reasons.
He was convicted in an earlier incident in 2008 in which he fired six shots at a neighbour, who survived.
Lima had been smashing a pavement outside his home to stop water from his washing machine accumulating in a drain. His neighbour had asked him to explain his actions, but was violently attacked.
The gunman, known in Argentina as "El Loco", was released in 2013 after serving five years of a seven and a half year sentence, and then became a seafarer.
