Sinking of F174
Encyclopedia
The sinking of the ship F174 was the worst maritime disaster in the Mediterranean Sea
since World War II
. It is known in Italy as the Strage di Natale (Christmas massacre) or Portopalo massacre.
An old, severely overloaded wooden ship transporting illegal immigrants from India
, Sri Lanka
and Pakistan
to Italy
sank on the night of December 25-26, 1996 19 miles (30.6 km) from Portopalo di Capo Passero
in Sicily
, Italy
under questionable circumstances, and came to rest under 108 metres (354.3 ft) of water. The number of deaths remains unknown, but at least 283 men, women and children perished.
The fishermen of Portopalo became aware of the disaster when they began to recover human remains and other evidence in their nets. However, they and practically all of the other residents of Portopalo failed to report it to the authorities, fearing that government action would interfere with their livelihood. La Repubblica
reporter Giovanni Maria Bellu finally broke the story, leading to much soul searching in Italy over the indifference to the fate of illegal immigrants.
from Turkey
and Kurdistan, from the Indo-Pakistani region and assembled in Cairo
and Alexandria
, hoping to reach the coast of Italy. They were supposed to board a large fishing vessel, the Friendship, but the payload was not enough for the shipowner to risk the voyage to the Italian coast. After 12 days of waiting for a new group of migrants, they were moved to a new ship, a Maltese
freighter named the Iohan El Hallal (or Yohan according to some sources), flying a Honduran
flag. Commanded by Lebanese Captain Youssef El-Hallal, the Iohan El Hallal was barely big enough to accommodate 470 tired passengers.
, where the passengers were secretly unloaded onto another boat, codenamed F174 (actual name unknown). Some passengers complained about the bad condition of the vessel, but were forced to board it by the captain, armed and purportedly drunk.
F174 was a vessel 18 metres (59.1 ft) long, 4 metres (13.1 ft) wide, painted white and blue, designed for short fishing trips and furnished with freezers in the hold. At best, it could hold 80 passengers and crew, and was usually used as a shuttle to bring food and water from the docks to the Iohan. The hold was accessible only through a small hatch. It was in terrible shape and missing any safety feature. Its wooden hull was worn out and the ship was barely staying afloat in the stormy sea. Survivors who later testified in a Greek trial called it a "floating coffin". After the fishing vessel showed signs of instability due to the extreme load, about a hundred migrants were sent back to the Iohan, leaving over 300 (317 according to some survivors) to begin the final leg of their trip.
It is unclear why the Iohan was not used instead of the less seaworthy F174, especially since a storm was highly likely and strong winds had been reported. The Italian coasts were normally patrolled by military ships, but the bigger ship had been used on smuggling runs, and would later do so again.
It is unclear if F174 broke up due to a small gale or if, as some survivors claimed later, the ship went down as a result of a collision with the Iohan when the latter came to pick up Zervoudakis, who had jumped into the sea well before the final moments of his ship. In any case, the sinking took only a matter of minutes.
Only 30 people could be saved by the Iohans lifeboats. The exit through the small hatch impaired those fleeing from the sinking ship, and the secondary hatches were blocked by the people standing on the deck, too scared to jump in the freezing water or waiting a rope from the mother ship. The Lebanese captain, drunk and aggressive, purportedly forbade the passengers to help the drowning people. At least 283 people sank with the ship.
The Iohan sailed for Greece with about 170 survivors. There, the captain unloaded the passengers and managed to have them segregated in a clandestine jail inside an abandoned farmhouse. Some migrants escaped and alerted the local police. They reported the sinking, but were not believed and were sent to a real jail.
The Iohan continued bringing illegal migrants to Italy, until it was spotted and impounded while leaving Calabria
on February 28. Italian officers investigated the ship superficially, but got no clue of the tragedy.
Many fishermen just threw the bodies back into the sea; they were cynically nicknamed "Mediterranean tuna
", and became a well-kept secret of the fishing community. Those who brought back some of the corpses were threatened with bureaucratic obstruction and lost ten days of work before having their ships restored to them. The widespread feeling was that the officers were trying to avoid problems and responded with hostility and retaliation to any initiative to act in the matter.
named Ampalagan Ganeshu from Chawchsceri. Lupo alerted the Sea Authority about what he had found and about the likely presence of a wreck in the spot where F174 sank. The officers did not believe him. Through a friend living in Rome, Lupo contacted journalist Giovanni Maria Bellu, who was investigating rumors about the sinking, and gave him the coordinates.
Lupo's story met with mixed public response; he was supported by some of his fellow townsfolk, but met with hostility from many others, who accused him of having betrayed his town, slandered its name, and potentially ruined the fishing and tourist season. After the story broke, he embarked on a five month fishing cruise trip and ultimately had to quit fishing due to threats to him and his ship.
While young people, townsfolk and many fishermen came to terms with the tragedy in the following years, city officers and politicians claimed that this event was a dark spot on city's reputation and opposed many initiatives to honor the memory of the deceased. When Bellu's book I Fantasmi di Portopalo (Ghosts of Portopalo) was published, it was harsh criticized by the city's mayor, Fernando Cammisuli. Questioned, he stated that he had read only "a few pages" of the book. Remembrance ceremonies in the following years were largely unattended by city officers, and only about 400 of the 3000 residents of Portopalo showed up.
and the magazine L'espresso
.
The ROV filmed the damaged hull, showing consistent damage to the bow and right side of the ship. The first signs of the wreck came in the form of a sneaker shoe, followed by denim trousers containing a human femur
. Skeletons were found still in the hold, but many of the skull
s had detached and fallen to the seabed.
The Siracusa Prosecutor’s Office had begun an official inquiry after the first articles by Bello, but after the wreck was found, was forced to abandon any prosecution since the ship was in international waters, not under Italian jurisdiction
.
The Greek captain and owner of F174, Eftychios Zebourdakis, fled to France
and could not be prosecuted due to France's refusal to extradite
him. The Pakistani, Tourab Ahmed Sheik, who was living in Malta, was discharged from the first degree offence, but was later sentenced to 30 years for the second degree crime in 2008, along with the captain (in absentia
). The Iohans captain, the Lebanese El Hallal, could not be prosecuted due to the international waters clause. From the inquiry, it emerged that both he and Zebourdakis were part of a wider cartel
of human traffickers reaching from Karachi
to Colombo
and Alexandria.
Zervoudakis came under scrutiny by Greece prosecutors, who held a separate trial. In 1999, he was arrested and jailed in Greece
while trying to smuggle another load of immigrants.
s. This caused a minor public outcry by civil right activists.
Relatives living in Italy said they risked being jailed (due to the new immigration law) and could not testify either. Zabihullah Bacha, father of the deceased Syed Habib, lived in Italy up until 1995, when he returned to Pakistan to assist his mother. After the tragedy, he asked to return to Italy, but his permit was delayed. He came back as an illegal alien, waiting for an official permit, to testify at the proceedings. He was arrested and risked imprisonment, so he decided to go back to Pakistan.
Balwant Singh Khera, a spiritual leader of the Pakistani community, staged a demonstration along with four fellow countryman in the Via della Conciliazione
in Rome in 1998. He made speeches explaining to pilgrim
s walking to the Vatican
the tragic story of the sunken ship, but was held and threatened by the police. He later compiled a dossier about immigration channels, with help from some survivors in India, and was asked to present his findings to the court. Unfortunately, Khera's permit expired; he had to go back to India and was denied an entry visa to Italy.
Shahab brought an old notepad, on which, a few days after the tragedy had occurred, he had written down the names of the drowned he knew. He told how he spent $7000 to travel from Karachi to Damasco and Latakia, where he boarded a ship called Alex, being later reshipped to the Ena, the Friendship, and finally the Iohan. He stated he was to pay another $7000 after disembarking in Italy.
During the four month trip, passengers were kept segregated, with barely enough water and food to survive. No personal hygiene, razors or haircuts were allowed. That, suggested Shahab, could mean that they were never meant to complete their trip.
According to what Shahab told the prosecutors, when the Iohan hit the F174, the small ship circled for more than an hour before sinking. That kept it from reaching shallower waters, if not the coastline. Passengers alerted the captain, Eftychios Zervoudakis, that the ship was taking water, but all he did was call the Iohan via cellphone and, after five minutes, jump into the cold water to be picked up by the larger ship. Shahab stated that the Iohans captain, Youssef El Hallal, prohibited his passengers from throwing ropes to the drowning people. A young Indian was thrown back into the sea at his order.
While the testimony was deemed interesting, the deliberate sinking was not proved.
and an hunger strike
to assert their "right to exist".
In those five years, friends and relatives of the victims had tried to publicize their cause. Relatives of the Pakistani victims succeeded in joining forces thanks to Mr. Zabiullah, father of one of the deceased, and worked together to trace the whole chain of people and organizations managing the human traffic from Pakistan, to Greece and Italy, led by Turkish criminals, Greek shipowners, Kurd warlords and Italian mafia
. This report, published in Italy by Narcomafie, helped in the proceedings against the crew of the recently impounded Iohan.
The finding of a sunken body near Gela
sparked interest by other journalists and by the Indian and Pakistani embassies. The Sri Lankan embassy preferred not to get involved, since their dead were mostly Sikh
s and Tamil
s, persecuted minorities in that country. Two of the dead were relatives of Shabir Khan, the leader of the Italian Pakistani community, and had applied for residence permits.
associations and Portuguese
government to Silvio Berlusconi
's administration to recover the wreckage and corpses went unheard. The same happened to any call for a broader inquiry about the human traffic in the Mediterranean and the lack of action by local officers who got a hint of the tragedy.
Many civil rights activist and civil associations spoke out against the new immigration law that criminalized illegal aliens, which implied that fishermen helping a sinking immigrant boat in order to save lives could be prosecuted for helping clandestine immigration (as happened in 2004 in the case of the ship Cap Anamour, which was impounded for saving from the sea 39 Darfur
immigrants). The Portopalo tragedy was cited as an example of bad behavior caused by unfair immigration laws.
TV show Blu Notte aired an episode about the sinking.
A few theater plays have been written about the tragedy, the most famous being La Nave Fantasma (Ghost Ship), with dramatic actor and comedian Bebo Storti. Bellu, Storti and Renato Sarti are the play's authors.
Mediterranean Sea
The Mediterranean Sea is a sea connected to the Atlantic Ocean surrounded by the Mediterranean region and almost completely enclosed by land: on the north by Anatolia and Europe, on the south by North Africa, and on the east by the Levant...
since World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
. It is known in Italy as the Strage di Natale (Christmas massacre) or Portopalo massacre.
An old, severely overloaded wooden ship transporting illegal immigrants from India
India
India , officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country with over 1.2 billion people, and the most populous democracy in the world...
, Sri Lanka
Sri Lanka
Sri Lanka, officially the Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka is a country off the southern coast of the Indian subcontinent. Known until 1972 as Ceylon , Sri Lanka is an island surrounded by the Indian Ocean, the Gulf of Mannar and the Palk Strait, and lies in the vicinity of India and the...
and Pakistan
Pakistan
Pakistan , officially the Islamic Republic of Pakistan is a sovereign state in South Asia. It has a coastline along the Arabian Sea and the Gulf of Oman in the south and is bordered by Afghanistan and Iran in the west, India in the east and China in the far northeast. In the north, Tajikistan...
to Italy
Italy
Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...
sank on the night of December 25-26, 1996 19 miles (30.6 km) from Portopalo di Capo Passero
Portopalo di Capo Passero
Portopalo di Capo Passero is a comune in the Province of Syracuse, Sicily . It's located about 220 km southeast of Palermo and about 45 km southwest of Syracuse...
in Sicily
Sicily
Sicily is a region of Italy, and is the largest island in the Mediterranean Sea. Along with the surrounding minor islands, it constitutes an autonomous region of Italy, the Regione Autonoma Siciliana Sicily has a rich and unique culture, especially with regard to the arts, music, literature,...
, Italy
Italy
Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...
under questionable circumstances, and came to rest under 108 metres (354.3 ft) of water. The number of deaths remains unknown, but at least 283 men, women and children perished.
The fishermen of Portopalo became aware of the disaster when they began to recover human remains and other evidence in their nets. However, they and practically all of the other residents of Portopalo failed to report it to the authorities, fearing that government action would interfere with their livelihood. La Repubblica
La Repubblica
la Repubblica is an Italian daily general-interest newspaper. Founded in 1976 in Rome by the journalist Eugenio Scalfari, as of 2008 is the second largest circulation newspaper, behind the Corriere della Sera.-Foundation:...
reporter Giovanni Maria Bellu finally broke the story, leading to much soul searching in Italy over the indifference to the fate of illegal immigrants.
Rendezvous in Alexandria
Illegal migrants traveled along many different routes, all of them controlled by human traffickersHuman trafficking
Human trafficking is the illegal trade of human beings for the purposes of reproductive slavery, commercial sexual exploitation, forced labor, or a modern-day form of slavery...
from Turkey
Turkey
Turkey , known officially as the Republic of Turkey , is a Eurasian country located in Western Asia and in East Thrace in Southeastern Europe...
and Kurdistan, from the Indo-Pakistani region and assembled in Cairo
Cairo
Cairo , is the capital of Egypt and the largest city in the Arab world and Africa, and the 16th largest metropolitan area in the world. Nicknamed "The City of a Thousand Minarets" for its preponderance of Islamic architecture, Cairo has long been a centre of the region's political and cultural life...
and Alexandria
Alexandria
Alexandria is the second-largest city of Egypt, with a population of 4.1 million, extending about along the coast of the Mediterranean Sea in the north central part of the country; it is also the largest city lying directly on the Mediterranean coast. It is Egypt's largest seaport, serving...
, hoping to reach the coast of Italy. They were supposed to board a large fishing vessel, the Friendship, but the payload was not enough for the shipowner to risk the voyage to the Italian coast. After 12 days of waiting for a new group of migrants, they were moved to a new ship, a Maltese
Malta
Malta , officially known as the Republic of Malta , is a Southern European country consisting of an archipelago situated in the centre of the Mediterranean, south of Sicily, east of Tunisia and north of Libya, with Gibraltar to the west and Alexandria to the east.Malta covers just over in...
freighter named the Iohan El Hallal (or Yohan according to some sources), flying a Honduran
Honduras
Honduras is a republic in Central America. It was previously known as Spanish Honduras to differentiate it from British Honduras, which became the modern-day state of Belize...
flag. Commanded by Lebanese Captain Youssef El-Hallal, the Iohan El Hallal was barely big enough to accommodate 470 tired passengers.
Ship swap
On December 24 (or possibly 25), the ship sailed for international watersInternational waters
The terms international waters or trans-boundary waters apply where any of the following types of bodies of water transcend international boundaries: oceans, large marine ecosystems, enclosed or semi-enclosed regional seas and estuaries, rivers, lakes, groundwater systems , and wetlands.Oceans,...
, where the passengers were secretly unloaded onto another boat, codenamed F174 (actual name unknown). Some passengers complained about the bad condition of the vessel, but were forced to board it by the captain, armed and purportedly drunk.
F174 was a vessel 18 metres (59.1 ft) long, 4 metres (13.1 ft) wide, painted white and blue, designed for short fishing trips and furnished with freezers in the hold. At best, it could hold 80 passengers and crew, and was usually used as a shuttle to bring food and water from the docks to the Iohan. The hold was accessible only through a small hatch. It was in terrible shape and missing any safety feature. Its wooden hull was worn out and the ship was barely staying afloat in the stormy sea. Survivors who later testified in a Greek trial called it a "floating coffin". After the fishing vessel showed signs of instability due to the extreme load, about a hundred migrants were sent back to the Iohan, leaving over 300 (317 according to some survivors) to begin the final leg of their trip.
It is unclear why the Iohan was not used instead of the less seaworthy F174, especially since a storm was highly likely and strong winds had been reported. The Italian coasts were normally patrolled by military ships, but the bigger ship had been used on smuggling runs, and would later do so again.
The sinking
While moving people between ships, F174 was struck in the bow by the Iohan. The damage was underestimated and the transfer continued, but part of the bow planking gave way and water began to enter the ship. When the emergency became clear, Eftychios Zervoudakis, the Greek commander and owner of F174, asked the Iohan for help. A few minutes later, the bigger ship was on the way to the rescue.It is unclear if F174 broke up due to a small gale or if, as some survivors claimed later, the ship went down as a result of a collision with the Iohan when the latter came to pick up Zervoudakis, who had jumped into the sea well before the final moments of his ship. In any case, the sinking took only a matter of minutes.
Only 30 people could be saved by the Iohans lifeboats. The exit through the small hatch impaired those fleeing from the sinking ship, and the secondary hatches were blocked by the people standing on the deck, too scared to jump in the freezing water or waiting a rope from the mother ship. The Lebanese captain, drunk and aggressive, purportedly forbade the passengers to help the drowning people. At least 283 people sank with the ship.
The Iohan sailed for Greece with about 170 survivors. There, the captain unloaded the passengers and managed to have them segregated in a clandestine jail inside an abandoned farmhouse. Some migrants escaped and alerted the local police. They reported the sinking, but were not believed and were sent to a real jail.
The Iohan continued bringing illegal migrants to Italy, until it was spotted and impounded while leaving Calabria
Calabria
Calabria , in antiquity known as Bruttium, is a region in southern Italy, south of Naples, located at the "toe" of the Italian Peninsula. The capital city of Calabria is Catanzaro....
on February 28. Italian officers investigated the ship superficially, but got no clue of the tragedy.
Fishermen
From January 2, Portopalo fishermen began to find corpses, body parts and personal belongings in their nets, but did not alert the local police. Notifying the Capitaneria di Porto could have meant being questioned or, worse, having ships and equipment impounded for investigations without any financial compensation at a time where the fishing season was at its peak.Many fishermen just threw the bodies back into the sea; they were cynically nicknamed "Mediterranean tuna
Tuna
Tuna is a salt water fish from the family Scombridae, mostly in the genus Thunnus. Tuna are fast swimmers, and some species are capable of speeds of . Unlike most fish, which have white flesh, the muscle tissue of tuna ranges from pink to dark red. The red coloration derives from myoglobin, an...
", and became a well-kept secret of the fishing community. Those who brought back some of the corpses were threatened with bureaucratic obstruction and lost ten days of work before having their ships restored to them. The widespread feeling was that the officers were trying to avoid problems and responded with hostility and retaliation to any initiative to act in the matter.
Salvatore Lupo
In 2001, local fisherman Salvatore "Salvo" Lupo, unaware of the tragedy, went fishing in an unusual spot. His nets caught something underwater and were damaged. He recovered them and found clothes with coins in the pockets and the ID card of a 17-year-old TamilTamil people
Tamil people , also called Tamils or Tamilians, are an ethnic group native to Tamil Nadu, India and the north-eastern region of Sri Lanka. Historic and post 15th century emigrant communities are also found across the world, notably Malaysia, Singapore, Mauritius, South Africa, Australia, Canada,...
named Ampalagan Ganeshu from Chawchsceri. Lupo alerted the Sea Authority about what he had found and about the likely presence of a wreck in the spot where F174 sank. The officers did not believe him. Through a friend living in Rome, Lupo contacted journalist Giovanni Maria Bellu, who was investigating rumors about the sinking, and gave him the coordinates.
Lupo's story met with mixed public response; he was supported by some of his fellow townsfolk, but met with hostility from many others, who accused him of having betrayed his town, slandered its name, and potentially ruined the fishing and tourist season. After the story broke, he embarked on a five month fishing cruise trip and ultimately had to quit fishing due to threats to him and his ship.
While young people, townsfolk and many fishermen came to terms with the tragedy in the following years, city officers and politicians claimed that this event was a dark spot on city's reputation and opposed many initiatives to honor the memory of the deceased. When Bellu's book I Fantasmi di Portopalo (Ghosts of Portopalo) was published, it was harsh criticized by the city's mayor, Fernando Cammisuli. Questioned, he stated that he had read only "a few pages" of the book. Remembrance ceremonies in the following years were largely unattended by city officers, and only about 400 of the 3000 residents of Portopalo showed up.
Inquiry
The first rumors about the sinking were quickly dismissed as exaggerations and falsehoods. The official stance of the Italian government was firm disbelief in the story, which was repeatedly described as an "alleged sinking".Filming the wreckage
In 2001, Bellu managed to send a remotely operated underwater vehicle (ROV) to the seabed to film the wreck and the skeletons of the victims. The whole investigation up to that point had been done at his expense, since no newspaper thought the story to be of public interest. The ROV mission was sponsored by the newspaper la RepubblicaLa Repubblica
la Repubblica is an Italian daily general-interest newspaper. Founded in 1976 in Rome by the journalist Eugenio Scalfari, as of 2008 is the second largest circulation newspaper, behind the Corriere della Sera.-Foundation:...
and the magazine L'espresso
L'Espresso
l'Espresso is an Italian newsmagazine. It is one of the two most prominent Italian weeklies, the other being Panorama. Since the latter has been acquired by right-wing tycoon and politician Silvio Berlusconi, l'Espresso enjoys the reputation of being the main politically independent newsmagazine...
.
The ROV filmed the damaged hull, showing consistent damage to the bow and right side of the ship. The first signs of the wreck came in the form of a sneaker shoe, followed by denim trousers containing a human femur
Femur
The femur , or thigh bone, is the most proximal bone of the leg in tetrapod vertebrates capable of walking or jumping, such as most land mammals, birds, many reptiles such as lizards, and amphibians such as frogs. In vertebrates with four legs such as dogs and horses, the femur is found only in...
. Skeletons were found still in the hold, but many of the skull
Human skull
The human skull is a bony structure, skeleton, that is in the human head and which supports the structures of the face and forms a cavity for the brain.In humans, the adult skull is normally made up of 22 bones...
s had detached and fallen to the seabed.
The Siracusa Prosecutor’s Office had begun an official inquiry after the first articles by Bello, but after the wreck was found, was forced to abandon any prosecution since the ship was in international waters, not under Italian jurisdiction
Jurisdiction
Jurisdiction is the practical authority granted to a formally constituted legal body or to a political leader to deal with and make pronouncements on legal matters and, by implication, to administer justice within a defined area of responsibility...
.
The territorial competency issue
Prosecutors chose to apply an unusual procedure, which allowed them to prosecute crimes committed outside national territory if they are or particular relevance. F174s captain and a Pakistani smuggler were accused of "aggravated multiple voluntary homicide", while the charges against any other crew member of both F174 and the Iohan were dropped.The Greek captain and owner of F174, Eftychios Zebourdakis, fled to France
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
and could not be prosecuted due to France's refusal to extradite
Extradition
Extradition is the official process whereby one nation or state surrenders a suspected or convicted criminal to another nation or state. Between nation states, extradition is regulated by treaties...
him. The Pakistani, Tourab Ahmed Sheik, who was living in Malta, was discharged from the first degree offence, but was later sentenced to 30 years for the second degree crime in 2008, along with the captain (in absentia
In absentia
In absentia is Latin for "in the absence". In legal use, it usually means a trial at which the defendant is not physically present. The phrase is not ordinarily a mere observation, but suggests recognition of violation to a defendant's right to be present in court proceedings in a criminal trial.In...
). The Iohans captain, the Lebanese El Hallal, could not be prosecuted due to the international waters clause. From the inquiry, it emerged that both he and Zebourdakis were part of a wider cartel
Cartel
A cartel is a formal agreement among competing firms. It is a formal organization of producers and manufacturers that agree to fix prices, marketing, and production. Cartels usually occur in an oligopolistic industry, where there is a small number of sellers and usually involve homogeneous products...
of human traffickers reaching from Karachi
Karachi
Karachi is the largest city, main seaport and the main financial centre of Pakistan, as well as the capital of the province of Sindh. The city has an estimated population of 13 to 15 million, while the total metropolitan area has a population of over 18 million...
to Colombo
Colombo
Colombo is the largest city of Sri Lanka. It is located on the west coast of the island and adjacent to Sri Jayawardenapura Kotte, the capital of Sri Lanka. Colombo is often referred to as the capital of the country, since Sri Jayawardenapura Kotte is a satellite city of Colombo...
and Alexandria.
Zervoudakis came under scrutiny by Greece prosecutors, who held a separate trial. In 1999, he was arrested and jailed in Greece
Greece
Greece , officially the Hellenic Republic , and historically Hellas or the Republic of Greece in English, is a country in southeastern Europe....
while trying to smuggle another load of immigrants.
Bureaucratic obstacles to the hearing
During the proceedings, relatives of the victims from India, Sri Lanka and Pakistan asked to be heard, but Italian embassy denied them visaVisa
Visa or VISA may refer to:* Visa , a document issued by a country's government allowing the holder to enter or to leave that country...
s. This caused a minor public outcry by civil right activists.
Relatives living in Italy said they risked being jailed (due to the new immigration law) and could not testify either. Zabihullah Bacha, father of the deceased Syed Habib, lived in Italy up until 1995, when he returned to Pakistan to assist his mother. After the tragedy, he asked to return to Italy, but his permit was delayed. He came back as an illegal alien, waiting for an official permit, to testify at the proceedings. He was arrested and risked imprisonment, so he decided to go back to Pakistan.
Balwant Singh Khera, a spiritual leader of the Pakistani community, staged a demonstration along with four fellow countryman in the Via della Conciliazione
Via della Conciliazione
Via della Conciliazione is a street in the Rione of Borgo within Rome, Italy. Roughly 500 m in length, it connects Saint Peter's Square to the Castel Sant'Angelo on the western bank of the Tiber River. The road was constructed between 1936 and 1950, and it is the primary access route to the...
in Rome in 1998. He made speeches explaining to pilgrim
Pilgrim
A pilgrim is a traveler who is on a journey to a holy place. Typically, this is a physical journeying to some place of special significance to the adherent of a particular religious belief system...
s walking to the Vatican
Vatican City
Vatican City , or Vatican City State, in Italian officially Stato della Città del Vaticano , which translates literally as State of the City of the Vatican, is a landlocked sovereign city-state whose territory consists of a walled enclave within the city of Rome, Italy. It has an area of...
the tragic story of the sunken ship, but was held and threatened by the police. He later compiled a dossier about immigration channels, with help from some survivors in India, and was asked to present his findings to the court. Unfortunately, Khera's permit expired; he had to go back to India and was denied an entry visa to Italy.
The "deliberate sinking" theory
Shahab Ahmad, one of the few survivors, stated that the Iohan struck the F174 on purpose. After trying to have their voices heard by the prosecutors, some of the survivors managed to get in touch with attorney Simonetta Crisci. They were recalled to Italy and allowed to give testimony.Shahab brought an old notepad, on which, a few days after the tragedy had occurred, he had written down the names of the drowned he knew. He told how he spent $7000 to travel from Karachi to Damasco and Latakia, where he boarded a ship called Alex, being later reshipped to the Ena, the Friendship, and finally the Iohan. He stated he was to pay another $7000 after disembarking in Italy.
During the four month trip, passengers were kept segregated, with barely enough water and food to survive. No personal hygiene, razors or haircuts were allowed. That, suggested Shahab, could mean that they were never meant to complete their trip.
According to what Shahab told the prosecutors, when the Iohan hit the F174, the small ship circled for more than an hour before sinking. That kept it from reaching shallower waters, if not the coastline. Passengers alerted the captain, Eftychios Zervoudakis, that the ship was taking water, but all he did was call the Iohan via cellphone and, after five minutes, jump into the cold water to be picked up by the larger ship. Shahab stated that the Iohans captain, Youssef El Hallal, prohibited his passengers from throwing ropes to the drowning people. A young Indian was thrown back into the sea at his order.
While the testimony was deemed interesting, the deliberate sinking was not proved.
Attempts to publicize the disaster
The tragedy remained unknown to the general public for five years, until Bello made available the photographs of the wreck taken by the ROV and he published his book Ghosts of Portopalo. Coincidentally, the day before the tragedy, migrants staged a demonstration in Piazza Colonna in RomeRome
Rome is the capital of Italy and the country's largest and most populated city and comune, with over 2.7 million residents in . The city is located in the central-western portion of the Italian Peninsula, on the Tiber River within the Lazio region of Italy.Rome's history spans two and a half...
and an hunger strike
Hunger strike
A hunger strike is a method of non-violent resistance or pressure in which participants fast as an act of political protest, or to provoke feelings of guilt in others, usually with the objective to achieve a specific goal, such as a policy change. Most hunger strikers will take liquids but not...
to assert their "right to exist".
In those five years, friends and relatives of the victims had tried to publicize their cause. Relatives of the Pakistani victims succeeded in joining forces thanks to Mr. Zabiullah, father of one of the deceased, and worked together to trace the whole chain of people and organizations managing the human traffic from Pakistan, to Greece and Italy, led by Turkish criminals, Greek shipowners, Kurd warlords and Italian mafia
Mafia
The Mafia is a criminal syndicate that emerged in the mid-nineteenth century in Sicily, Italy. It is a loose association of criminal groups that share a common organizational structure and code of conduct, and whose common enterprise is protection racketeering...
. This report, published in Italy by Narcomafie, helped in the proceedings against the crew of the recently impounded Iohan.
The finding of a sunken body near Gela
Gela
Gela is a town and comune in the province of Caltanissetta in the south of Sicily, Italy. The city is at about 84 kilometers distance from the city of Caltanissetta, on the Mediterranean Sea. The city has a larger population than the provincial capital, and ranks second in land area.Gela is an...
sparked interest by other journalists and by the Indian and Pakistani embassies. The Sri Lankan embassy preferred not to get involved, since their dead were mostly Sikh
Sikh
A Sikh is a follower of Sikhism. It primarily originated in the 15th century in the Punjab region of South Asia. The term "Sikh" has its origin in Sanskrit term शिष्य , meaning "disciple, student" or शिक्ष , meaning "instruction"...
s and Tamil
Tamil people
Tamil people , also called Tamils or Tamilians, are an ethnic group native to Tamil Nadu, India and the north-eastern region of Sri Lanka. Historic and post 15th century emigrant communities are also found across the world, notably Malaysia, Singapore, Mauritius, South Africa, Australia, Canada,...
s, persecuted minorities in that country. Two of the dead were relatives of Shabir Khan, the leader of the Italian Pakistani community, and had applied for residence permits.
Government's stance on immigration
Requests by locals citizens, European civil rightsCivil rights
Civil and political rights are a class of rights that protect individuals' freedom from unwarranted infringement by governments and private organizations, and ensure one's ability to participate in the civil and political life of the state without discrimination or repression.Civil rights include...
associations and Portuguese
Portugal
Portugal , officially the Portuguese Republic is a country situated in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula. Portugal is the westernmost country of Europe, and is bordered by the Atlantic Ocean to the West and South and by Spain to the North and East. The Atlantic archipelagos of the...
government to Silvio Berlusconi
Silvio Berlusconi
Silvio Berlusconi , also known as Il Cavaliere – from knighthood to the Order of Merit for Labour which he received in 1977 – is an Italian politician and businessman who served three terms as Prime Minister of Italy, from 1994 to 1995, 2001 to 2006, and 2008 to 2011. Berlusconi is also the...
's administration to recover the wreckage and corpses went unheard. The same happened to any call for a broader inquiry about the human traffic in the Mediterranean and the lack of action by local officers who got a hint of the tragedy.
Many civil rights activist and civil associations spoke out against the new immigration law that criminalized illegal aliens, which implied that fishermen helping a sinking immigrant boat in order to save lives could be prosecuted for helping clandestine immigration (as happened in 2004 in the case of the ship Cap Anamour, which was impounded for saving from the sea 39 Darfur
Darfur
Darfur is a region in western Sudan. An independent sultanate for several hundred years, it was incorporated into Sudan by Anglo-Egyptian forces in 1916. The region is divided into three federal states: West Darfur, South Darfur, and North Darfur...
immigrants). The Portopalo tragedy was cited as an example of bad behavior caused by unfair immigration laws.
Media representations
On September 30, 2007, the investigative journalismInvestigative journalism
Investigative journalism is a form of journalism in which reporters deeply investigate a single topic of interest, often involving crime, political corruption, or corporate wrongdoing. An investigative journalist may spend months or years researching and preparing a report. Investigative journalism...
TV show Blu Notte aired an episode about the sinking.
A few theater plays have been written about the tragedy, the most famous being La Nave Fantasma (Ghost Ship), with dramatic actor and comedian Bebo Storti. Bellu, Storti and Renato Sarti are the play's authors.