Four crew of detained ship leave with wages pledge
The seamen due to leave the 1,600 tonne Defender cargo ship have signed power of attorney over to the ITF to recover an average of $15,000 (€9,500) from the boat’s owners, Forrestry Shipping.
The rest of the crew have taken up the company’s promise that they will be paid in full if they immediately renounce all ties with the ITF. The company’s management team sent one of its superintendents on board the ship overnight on Sunday night.
It is understood it also paid Irish Customs officials an undisclosed sum in penalties over the presence of up to €45,000 worth of allegedly illegal cigarettes which were seized from the vessel.
Following the seizure one of the crew was arrested, but was later released without charge.
The Defender has been moored in Cork harbour since early on Thursday.
Over the weekend the ship’s owners asked the ITF to allow the vessel to sail yesterday to Drogheda to pick up a cargo.
However, Mr Fleming refused to let it depart fearing it would simply leave Irish waters.
This morning one of the boat’s officers was due to leave Cork to travel to his home country, Russia. He is owed $10,000 (€6,300). The other three crew members will all travel to Odessa in Latvia tomorrow.
In total, Mr Fleming of the ITF has estimated the crew of nine are owed almost $100,000 (€63,000) and he had initially intended to claim an additional $24,000 (€15,000) in labour law penalties.
However, he could not convince the other five crew members to allow him to secure their money for them. He now fears they may not get all the owed monies when their vessel returns to Latvia.
In the last 18 months Mr Fleming has single-handedly recovered $1 million (€630,000) in owed wages. He has searched 200 boats and, of those, 25 have had crew members owed money.
The smallest payment was €37.72, the largest was €160,000 owed to crew members on the Russian-crewed ship, Merchant Brilliant.
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