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Prosecutor charged defendants with illegal scrapping

For the first time, the Hamburg public prosecutor's office has charged three defendants with the illegal scrapping of a ship in India. More charges could follow. The last voyage of the "CS Discovery" started on Dec 15, 2016, in Gioa Tauro via the port of Mersinto Alang , where it finally arrived in early January 2017. However, Alang does not have a harbour, just a beach with more than a hundred shipyards where ships are dismantled, often under questionable working and environmental conditions. The “CS Discovery” was dismantled at one of these shipyards in spring 2017. The public prosecutors in Hamburg have been investigating numerous people involved for years about violations of the Waste Shipment Act, which states that waste must be disposed of in an environmentally friendly manner in appropriate facilities, and anyone who fails to do so is committing a criminal offense. According to the Hamburg public prosecutor's office, the "CS Discovery" had contained around 14,000 tons of hazardous waste at the time of sale, including almost 500 kg of lead accumulators, 970 tons of mineral oil waste and 13,000 tons of waste made from metals and metal alloys.The “CS Discovery” should have been dismantled in an environmentally friendly manner. But legally this could only have been done at certain shipyards in the EU or Turkey. But according to the public prosecutor's office, the accused decided to take a different path by selling the ship to a so-called “cash buyer,” a company, in this case based in Hong Kong, that acted as an intermediary between the ship owner and the ship-breaking yard. They are said to have been aware that the "CS Discovery" was ultimately to be scrapped in India under conditions that did not meet the usual environmental standards. The third accused is said to have organized the sale of the container ship and ensured that it comes to India. He also instructed the captain of the "CS Discovery" to drive the ship onto the beach in Alang so that it can be dismantled there. The public prosecutor also mentioned the price of 4.7 million US dollarsthat the Hamburg shipping company achieved: If the ship had been properly scrapped, the owners would have received significantly less money for it, because environmentally friendly recycling costs money, which is deducted from the purchase price. The question now is whether the court will allow the prosecution. The affected Hamburg shipping company Peter Döhle did not want to comment on the case. The “Discovery” case is the first to be brought to trial in Hamburg. In Schleswig-Holstein, charges in a similar case were admitted 1,5 years ago. Since then, those involved have been waiting for the first court date to be set. It is still uncertain how many other similar investigations will result in charges.

On the beach...

..in Alang: https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10156214045697588&set=g.6884293942&type=1&theater

Beached

beached at Alang 11.01.17 Plot 34