A Taiwan court has sentenced the Chinese captain of a ship to three years in jail after finding him guilty of intentionally damaging undersea cables off the island in February. He was found guilty of “wilfully anchoring in a prohibited zone”.
Prosecutors said the man was captain of the Chinese-crewed Hong Tai 58, registered in Togo, which Taiwanese authorities detained after suspecting the ship had dropped anchor near an undersea cable off southwestern Taiwan, damaging it.
The court in Tainan said the ship’s Chinese captain, whom they identified only by his family name, Wang, was guilty of damaging the cables. The court noted that he had denied the crime and that he could appeal.
Under the charges, the court could have sentenced the captain to between one and seven years. He can appeal the three-year sentence. Insufficient evidence was found against the other seven crewmembers and they were deported.
Wang admitted that he told the crew to drop anchor, but denied that he was guilty of damaging the cables, although he accepted that he might have been negligent in his duties, the court said in a statement.
The court found that the captain had allowed the cargo ship to “wander,” and that the cables broke due to the pulling of the anchor, it added.
Taiwan’s Chunghwa Telecom incurred the equivalent of more than $550,000 in repair costs, the court said.
According to the reports, the vessel, which was alternately using the names Hong Tai 168 and Hong Tai 58, had entered the restricted zone on February 22nd . A shore station attempted to contact the vessel several times and received no reply. The Taiwan Coast Guard asked the vessel to move from the area, which it said was clearly marked on the charts.
On February 25th the vessel was departing the zone at 03:00. At this time Chunghwa Telecom reported an outage on its Taiwan-Penghu No. 3 subsea cable. The TCG intercepted the vessel and directed it to port.
The vessel was1,800 dwt and had a crew of eight Chinese nationals aboard.
The TCG said that captain at first denied the charges and refused to give them details on the ownership of the vessel.
The Captain admitted to ordering two crewmembers to drop 160 meters of anchor chain, but the TCG said that it did not attach to the bottom and the vessel continued to move around in the area of the cable.
Evidence showed the cable had been subjected to external forces and that it had been snagged by an external force.
Chinese officials have denied involvement or knowledge of the incident. They said that the incident was an example of a “common maritime accident”. It said that Taiwan’s accounts were exaggerated.