A lawyer for the captain of a cargo ship jailed in Italy for allegedly transporting embargoed armaments to Libya said Thursday that there are no legal grounds for a case against his client in Italy.
Lawyer Cesare Fumagalli told The Associated Press there is absolutely no proof the Lebanese-flagged Bana ever plied Italian waters with such arms aboard, and therefore his client should not face prosecution in the country.
Italian authorities sequestered the vessel, which is used to transport vehicles between Europe, northern Africa and the Middle East, in the northern port of Genoa earlier this month.
Prosecutors have alleged the Bana transported tanks, motor vehicles fitted with rocket launchers and machines guns as well as explosives from Turkey to Libya in defiance of international embargoes. They also contend Turkish soldiers accompanied the shipment.
Fumagalli said his client, Capt. Youssef Tartoussi, is in a “calm” state of mind.
Italians started investigating what the Bana did before arriving in Genoa after the ship's third officer, with the help of the shipping company's local agent, contacted border police and requested asylum.
According to the judge's ruling in approving the arrest order, the officer, who is Lebanese like Capt. Tartoussi, told Italian authorities that the ship left Beirut on Jan. 21, and stopped the next day in the Turkish port of Mersin, even though the stop wasn't part of the navigational plan.
There, it allegedly took aboard “army tanks, wheeled vehicles equipped with rocket launchers and machine guns, cross-country vehicles and some containers marked with labels indicating the presence of explosives as well as about 10 Turkish soldiers.”
In a bid to gain influence in the energy-rich northern African country Turkey has taken the side of one of Libya's rival governments, promising military support and sending hundreds of Syrian fighters. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan earlier this week said Turkey would continue to help the Tripoli-based government establish dominance over the entire country.
In Ankara on Thursday, the Turkish Foreign Ministry did not immediately respond to a request by AP for comment. A senior Turkish military official, asked about Italian prosecutors' contentions that Turkish military members allegedly played a role in the traffficking, replied that the military had no such information.
Italian authorities contend the captain violated embargoes by both the United Nations and the European Union.
The embargoes are aimed at choking off supplies of weapons to militias fighting to secure territory for rival authorities who claim power in Libya, where chaos and lawlessness has mainly held sway since 2011, after an uprising deposed and killed longtime strongman Moammar Gadhafi.