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Investigations against German ship owners and VDR for suspicion of illegal waste export

For the first time, public prosecutors are taking massive action against German shipping companies who are said to have illegally disposed of scrap ships in South Asia. The President of the Shipowners' Association VDR is also being investigated in connection with the "Westerhamm" which cast off on Nov 2, 2016, from Bremerhaven to Alang, where at more than a hundred shipyards, migrant workers dismantle discarded ship from all over the world - often under questionable working and environmental conditions. Therefore, the two owners of the Rendsburg based shipping company will soon be in court. The allegation against the shipowners from Rendsburg is that when the ship sailed, it was already clear that it would be scrapped in South Asia a few weeks later. Scrap ships are, according to the law, dangerous waste and cannot simply be exported from the European Union. If ships owned by German shipowners are not in EU waters, but in the Far East, in Africa or South America, there is no European law standing in the way of scrapping in South Asia. And even if old vessels anchored in EU ports are sold to non-European buyers for continued operation and only later scrapped, that is perfectly legal. Not infrequently, however, there is the suspicion that it is only claimed that a ship will continue to be operated after the sale, but in reality it has long been clear that it is to be scrapped. This is difficult for investigators to prove. They need evidence that the decision to scrap was made while the ship concerned was still in the EU. In the case of the "Westerhamm", the public prosecutor's office in Kiel believes that they can prove this. On the one hand, at the end of 2016, the ship sailed directly from Bremerhaven to Alang. And on the other hand, the shipowners are said to have already decided in September, i.e. several weeks before leaving Bremerhaven, to sell the ship, if necessary, at scrap prices. The sale itself probably happened at the only stopover on the voyage to South Asia, in the port of Port Said before entering the Suez Canal. When the ship was off Alang, the Rendsburg shipping company is said to have given the captain the order by e-mail to drive the "Westerhamm" onto the beach according to the indictment. In connection with the "Westerhamm", the Kiel public prosecutor's office is not only targeting the two Rendsburg shipowners. The President of the Association of German Shipowners, Gaby Bornheim, is also being investigated. She is the managing director of one of the largest shipping companies in Germany, the Peter Döhle Schifffahrts-KG in Hamburg. The public prosecutor's office in Kiel is also conducting preliminary proceedings against the two owners of the company, Christoph Döhle and Jochen Döhle. According to the chief public prosecutor in Kiel, Henning Hadeler, they are accused of being an "intermediary agent" responsible for the export of the scrap ship. Gaby Bornheim and the owners of the Peter Döhle shipping company are said to have helped the ship actually arrive on the beach in India. German report with photos: https://www.tagesschau.de/investigativ/ndr/schrottschiffe-suedasien-101.html

On the beach...

..at Plot 47 in Alang: https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=1389594461111528&set=gm.10155515909393943&type=3&theater

Beached

beached at Alang 30.12.16 Plot 10