The owner of the Enrica Lexie
tanker on Monday denied Indian media reports that two Italian
marines being detained in India on possible murder charges
pressured the ship's captain to fake a report to cover up their
alleged crime.
"Captain Umberto Vitelli never released any statement
claiming to have seen weapons or people carrying weapons, to any
authority whatsoever," said Pio Schiano, managing director of
Fratelli D'Amato subsidiary Dolphin Tanker, which owns the
Enrica Lexie.
The Hindustani Times claimed Monday that Salvatore Girone
and Massimiliano Latorre, involved in an incident in which two
Indian fishermen were killed February 15, 2012, "tried to cover
themselves" by forcing the captain of their tanker to file a
report claiming the fishermen were armed so as to explain their
decision to open fire.
The newspaper quoted an Indian interior ministry source as
saying that "the captain of the Enrica Lexie produced a report
via e-mail in which he claimed that six of the fishermen on the
St. Antony fishing smack were armed".
"But the Indian investigators determined that all 11
fishermen aboard were unarmed," the anonymous source was quoted
saying, "there were no weapons aboard the fishing vessel".
The Indian daily said the email was sent to an organization
for maritime security which passed it to the International
Maritime Organization, the UN agency for maritime security.
When Indian investigators questioned Vitelli, he denied
having witnessed the incident and claimed he had written the
email under pressure from the two marines guarding the tanker,
according to the Indian newspaper.
"The aim was to present the fishermen as pirates," the paper
wrote.
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