Iraq accused the US Navy of piracy Thursday, November 22 saying it was behind the sinking last weekend of a cargo vessel that left an Iraqi sailor dead, two US and three Iraqi sailors presumed dead.
"The American pirates are behind the sinking of the ... Samra and of its seizure near Iran's Nowrouz offshore well," an Iraqi foreign ministry spokesman said in a statement.
"This act of piracy caused the death of an Iraqi sailor, while two others are still missing, along with two American sailors," the statement added in reference to the sinking on Sunday.
The spokesman said the United States bears "full responsibility" for this action, carried out against "innocent people engaged in commercial activity." He called for the United Nations to "assume its responsibility for guaranteeing freedom of navigation in the Gulf in conformity with the principles of freedom of world trade."
On Wednesday, a spokesman for the US Fifth Fleet said the navy had found the body of one Iraqi sailor lost when the alleged oil-smuggling ship sank, and now presumes two missing US seamen and two more Iraqis are also dead.
The Pentagon had said earlier that an eight-member inspection team from the US destroyer Peterson boarded the ship, suspecting it was carrying Iraqi oil in violation of a UN embargo imposed on Baghdad for invading Kuwait in 1990.
According to the navy, the rusty, overloaded Samra had been fitted with hidden tanks to ferry oil, and was caught smuggling some 12,000 barrels of Iraqi crude. Bags of grain had been piled in the upper part of the hold to make the cargo appear legitimate. But it is still unclear exactly why the Samra went down. — (AFP, Baghdad)
© Agence France Presse 2001
© 2001 Mena Report (www.menareport.com)
