# Indian Master and Chief Officer of the Hebei Spirit jailed



## non descript (Nov 18, 2005)

Hebei two jailed
_The Indian master and chief officer of the Hebei Spirit VLCC have been jailed for their part in South Korea’s biggest oil spill. 
Captain Jasprit Chawla was sentenced to 18 months in prison and fined $14,000, while chief officer Syam Chetan was sentenced to eight months and fined $7,000 on Wednesday. 

The 270,000–dwt single-hulled tanker (built 1993), owned by China’s Hosco, was hit by a Samsung Heavy Industries crane barge while at anchor in the Yellow Sea in December 2007, spilling 10,500 tonnes of crude and causing at least $500m in damages to a wide stretch of coastline. 

Hosco was fined $21,000. 

The South Korean appeal court overturned a lower court ruling which found the operators of the VLCC not guilty and placed the blame almost entirely with Samsung. 

The ruling is sure to prompt widespread anger among shipowners and crew unions. 

The barge broke free from two tugs in rough seas and smashed into the tanker, which could not avoid it. The court jailed one tug captain for two years and six months, while the other was jailed for eight months. 

Hosco said their crew acted with the utmost professionalism to slacken the anchor line and move the massive tanker at short notice to minimise the collision. 

But the court said: "The captain could have averted a collision by pulling up the anchor or moving backward at full or half the usual speed." _

By Gary Dixon in London and Tradewinds Copyright
Published: 08:31 GMT, 10 Dec 2008 | last updated: 12:20 GMT, 10 Dec 2008


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## Brent Pyburn (Nov 23, 2006)

Whilst I am not party to the facts of the case, the jailing of these two officers is outrageous. I believe there should be punitive action taken against South Korea and I gather there have been demonstrations at their embassies in a number of countries.


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## gas_chief (May 6, 2007)

I just do not know what to say. I was shocked to read the news. I am a Chief Officer on a liner LNG trade that frequents Korean ports. This ruling is very troubling for my family and myself. What if something similar were to happen to me? What say do we seafarers have over where our vessels sail to?


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## non descript (Nov 18, 2005)

gas_chief, 

I don’t blame you for feeling as you do. At least the outburst from Mr Bishop of V Ships (quoted below from Tradewinds, along with other texts) will allow you some comfort that there are also sane people on this planet, and the Appeal Court Judges in Korea who may possibly have learnt their logic from the back of a cornflakes packet, are not typical, but sadly they are in control..(EEK) quite what they are in control of is not clear; but at first glance we can maybe feel it is unlikely they are or were ever in control of a VLCC at anchor; as clearly their lordships think that one starts a VLCC up like one starts a moped…(Jester) 

“*Utterly unreasonable”, “irrational” and “eye-popping hogwash” is how V.Ships’ Bob Bishop has labelled the decision by a South Korean court to jail officers of the Hebei Spirit. 

V.Ships Shipmanagement CEO Bob Bishop.
The shipmanager’s chief executive vowed to appeal Wednesday’s “ridiculous” judgements which have raised a cacophony of vitriol from industry bodies. 

“How does one begin?” Bishop posited when asked for his response to the jailing for 18 months of the 270,000-dwt tanker’s Indian master Jasprit Chawla and for eight months of chief engineer Syam Chetan. 

“These guys are innocent and they have been locked up to appease public opinion, is all one can assume,” Glasgow-based Bishop retorted. 

The officers of the 1993-built VLCC, owned by China’s Hosco and which spilled 10,500 tonnes of crude oil into the Yellow Sea after being struck by a falling crane from a Samsung-owned barge, were initially cleared of any wrongdoing by a lower court. The South Korean appeal court, however, later overturned the decision which placed the blame for the December 2007 incident almost entirely on Samsung’s door. 

“This is all about pandering to the Korean public to make it look like Samsung was not totally culpable.” 

“It is a straightforward publicity trick to march them out of court in handcuffs. This is going back to the times of barbarity.” 

Bishop was baffled as to the continued detention of the officers over the course of the trial saying “they have posed no security risk. V.Ship, [the officers themselves], the Indian government, the owners have given all possible guarantees that they would return [for trial if allowed back home]”. 

Although Bishop ventured that the company would “definitely be appealing” the sentences, he aired misgivings about the South Korean justice system. 

“We’ve now passed from the realms of rational action to the realms of irrational action,” he said before adding, “One has to follow due process in large part because there is no other.” 

Wednesday’s development also drew the ire of the International Transport Workers’ Federation (ITF) which called the judgements “incomprehensively vindictive”. 

In a scathing riposte to the court’s ruling entitled ‘No justice for Hebei Two’, ITF maritime coordinator Stephen Cotton said: “This is not justice. It’s not even something close. What we have seen today is scapegoating, criminalisation and a refusal to consider the wider body of evidence that calls into question the propriety of the court. 

“This decision is incomprehensibly vindictive and will impact on all professional mariners.” 

Like Bishop, Cotton pledged the ITF’s support to the jailed seafarers saying: “The one thing we can promise today is that this isn’t over. The campaign to free these men will go on growing until the justice that was so glaringly absent in this court today is done.” 
InterManager general secretary Guy Morel.
Guy Morel, general secretary of shipmanagement body InterManager, called the punishment meted out to the Hebei Spirit officers “a tragedy for the whole industry”. 
Morel added: “It is unacceptable that these two dedicated seafarers should be treated in this way. They have behaved professionally throughout this sorry affair and are being made scapegoats by South Korea. 
“These men followed correct procedures and ensured lives were protected but have been unfairly criminalised as a result. We believe that the evidence against them was flawed and manipulated and we will campaign vigorously on their behalf to overturn this unfair decision.”*


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## Roger Harrison (Apr 7, 2005)

This judgement seems similar to the situation that prevailed in London Docks back in the 60s. Dozens of barges would be floating around unhindered by any mooring lines etc. If a breeze got up, and one of these drifting barges hit whatever ship you were on, and suffered damage, then the ship was always found liable. Nowt changes - always the ships fault.

Roger Harrison


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## Supergoods (Nov 25, 2007)

A simple solution for anybody who has an interest in justice.

Refuse to by anything made by Samsung


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## R58484956 (Apr 19, 2004)

One comment above says "chief officer" another comment says "chief engineer" !!


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## non descript (Nov 18, 2005)

R58484956 said:


> One comment above says "chief officer" another comment says "chief engineer" !!


As I was not there and I am not a highly trained and eminent Korean Judge with an amazing understanding of both the Law and the inner workings of a VLCC, I will not be totally outspoken and decisive; but I used the words _Chief Officer _as this ties in with logic and also the facts. The words Chief Engineer did occur in other reports, wherein that writer spoke of “Three of five containers on the "Hebei Spirit" were punctured releasing roughly 10,500 metric tons of crude oil into the sea, making this incident the country's worst oil spill. The "Hebei Spirit" was carrying a total of 260,000 metric tonnes of crude oil. No casualties were reported.”… So on balance I reckon we are fairly safe in thinking it is the Chief Officer.


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## Bill Davies (Sep 5, 2007)

Would be a good idea to stand back and let this situation develop as I am reading conflicting reports all the time. I do however, feel sorry for these officers as the Koreans can be difficult.


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## JoK (Nov 12, 2006)

A nightmare for those men.


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## forthbridge (Jun 28, 2007)

I aologise for the length of this post which was taken from the Maritime Advocate on Line but i think may be of interest to members showing how badly ships officers can be treated by the authorities in some countries.

3. V Ships statement in respect of the Hebie Two

We are in receipt of a press statement from Messrs V Ships which has been sent to us via Ferdi Stolzenberg of MTI Network (Asia) which seems to reflect the heightened emotions of the parties in this difficult case:-

Hong Kong : 27th March, 2009
A very regrettable article appeared on Tuesday 24, in Lloyds List quoting the Chairman of the Korean Register, who is also the current Chairman of IACS, Mr Oh Kong-gyun, who made a number of most damaging and deplorable accusations against the Master and Chief Officer of the Hebei Spirit, who remain in country detention in Korea after 15 months.

While V.Ships welcomes the fact that when faced with his own statements and the damage they could cause, Mr Oh cancelled a scheduled trip to Washington and made a personal apology to the president of V.Ships stating that there had been some misunderstanding and that he was only trying to convey misconceptions held in Korea; V.Ships believes that the accusations were so injurious to the cause of the two Hebei officers that a clear and forthright response is required.

We welcome Mr. Oh's admission that the treatment of the Hebei Two was "regrettable" and applaud his efforts to gather support to change the laws in Korea "to make sure this kind of ill treatment of seafarers does not happen," said Mr Bob Bishop, CEO of V.Ships.

"We are however, horrified by the quoted assertion that the Hebei Two were arrested because "they did not tell the truth when they were investigated by the judicial branch of the Korean Court system" and "hid some information that was revealed to be untrue and they manipulated some VDR information".

V.Ships is adamant that these statements are manifestly untrue. The Hebei Two co-operated fully with the Korean authorities in all of their investigations, and have both throughout told the truth and nothing but the truth. This was so, notwithstanding the many lengthy and repeated interviews conducted notably by the Korean Maritime Police (KMP), which were more in the nature of interrogations; which were conducted late into the night; and which would be considered oppressive in most other jurisdictions. Indeed, we had the distinct impression at times that these investigations, which began as a genuine attempt to establish the facts of the case - a "fact finding" exercise - changed as time went on into a "fault finding" exercise bordering on a "fault making" exercise with what appeared to us to be deliberate attempts by the KMP to find ways to "trip up" the two crew. The same approach was repeated by the Korean Maritime Safety Tribunal (KMST) which went to extreme lengths to find fault with the actions of the Hebei Two. The KMST reports have attracted wide-spread international condemnation as a result, and also for the way in which the KMST conducted their investigations in complete disregard of the relevant IMO Regulations.

The hard drive from the VDR of the Hebei Spirit was subjected to close examination by computer experts from the manufacturers of the VDR in Denmark, and in the presence of representatives from the Korean authorities and the vessel's P&I Club. This examination confirmed that the VDR had not been tampered with in any way, shape or form. The reason for the absence of any data covering the time of the collision was simply that Captain Chawla had omitted to activate the back-up facility on the day of the collision - perhaps due to his giving priority to saving the ship, stopping the leaking oil as the Samsung crane bounce along the hull of the Hebei Spirit - from bow to stern; an omission he readily confessed to the Korean authorities.

Despite this, the lawyers for Samsung (the owners and operators of the crane barge that caused the damage to the oil cargo tanks) have continually focused on this issue in a malicious, mis-guided, and unsuccessful attempt to convince the Korean Courts that there has been some foul play. In doing so, they have afforded yet another example of the extreme lengths certain organisations in Korea are prepared to go to in their efforts to secure the convictions of two innocent and exemplary ship's officers.

Mr. Oh said the western media "were not fully appraised of all the facts of the case." He is right. This is because managers and owners of the Hebei Spirit have largely refrained from commenting in any great detail about all that has gone on during the investigations and criminal proceedings in Korea.

We have instead, quietly placed our trust in the independence and integrity of the Korean judicial system, which - until the lamentable decision of the Korean Appeal Court had given us no serious cause to complain.

We sincerely hope that the Korean Supreme Court will right the incredible injustices that have been done to the Hebei Two, and in so doing, to restore our and the international shipping industry's confidence in the Korean legal system. If the Hebei Two are not acquitted of all charges however, we anticipate the international reputation of Korea will be sadly tarnished.

In this regard, we are concerned that Mr. Oh as well, does not appear to be fully appraised of all of the facts of this case. This is perhaps understandable as to our knowledge, the Korean Register did not participate in the criminal court proceedings or those of the KMST; and we question therefore, whether Mr. Oh is in any position to comment authoritatively about this case. If he or his organisation are now receiving information about the case from other sources, then it would appear that they are being fed wrong information.

It certainly appears that Mr. Oh has not read the judgment of the Korean Appeal Court as if he had done so he would know that the Hebei Two were not detained for the reasons he says. Indeed, if they had been so detained his comments would amount to a very sad indictment of the Korean legal system.

We also find Mr. Oh's reported comments particularly distressing as they are the very same mis-guided ones which are being advanced so vigorously and maliciously by the lawyers for Samsung in their desperate efforts to deflect attention away from the failings of their own clients and to find fault with the Hebei Two. We trust that the obvious conclusions to be drawn from this sorry episode are not the correct ones. 


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## non descript (Nov 18, 2005)

Without wishing to defend or criticise, it would be fair to quote this that appeared in Lloyd’s List the day after the report:

*Thursday 26 March 2009
From Oh Kong-gyun *
_
SIR, The article “Treatment of Chawla and Chetan was regrettable”, published in Lloyd’s List (March 25, 2009) contains a statement I’d like to correct.
The article suggests that it was my view that the master and chief officer of the Hebei Spirit were jailed because they had been found guilty of manipulating information. I made this comment in the overall context of explaining that there were a number of misconceptions surrounding this unfortunate case, particularly in Korea. I was simply trying to relay these as I understood them and it was not my intention to state them as my personal view; they are not.
As an ex-seafarer, I sympathise deeply with the plight of the two officers and I have been doing all I can within Korean government and industry circles to ensure that all seafarers are treated fairly and that changes to relevant laws are made so that such a situation never occurs again. I apologise to the two gentlemen and their families if the article caused concern.
Oh Kong-gyun
Chairman and chief executiveKorean Register of Shipping _


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