A Coastguard officer and two sailors have been found guilty of the manslaughter of a Bahraini sailor who fell overboard into the sea after a patrol boat collided with his fishing vessel.
The Noukhada (Coastguard captain) was sentenced to five years behind bars. The fishermen were each sentenced to three years and three months in prison. Judges set a BD500 bail to suspend the sentences until the appeal process begins.
The victim and the two sailors were involved in illegal trawling, the court heard, under the cover of night in Ghumais, an area near Fasht Al Adhem, located on the Qatar-Bahraini maritime border, when the collision took place.
The boat’s captain fell into the water and, instead of rescuing him, a 45-minute-long high seas chase took place between the Coastguard and the fishing boat, during which time the injured victim had died of asphyxia. The body of 39-year-old Abdulla Hasan Al Shraimi washed up on a Qatari shore almost two weeks after the October 20 incident.
Gruesome details emerged in the High Criminal Court about the state of the deceased’s body, which experienced severe loss of tissue around the skull, limbs, chest and abdomen.
The Noukhada was found guilty of recklessly piloting the police vessel into the boat that the victim and other suspects were on, causing a crash that made two of the boat’s four passengers fall off of it.
The 34-year-old Bahraini was also charged with neglect for not attempting to help the man when he fell overboard.
The two sailors, aged 25 and 27, were sentenced to three years in prison after being found guilty of neglect and complicity in their friend’s death. They were further convicted with preventing public security officers from performing their duties, by not complying to orders to surrender to the authorities.
They were also found guilty of possessing prohibited trawling nets and using the environmentally-destructive fishing method. They were sentenced to an additional three months in prison for the other charges, with an additional BD500 bail imposed.
The 25-year-old defendant – the boat’s owner – was also fined BD500 for failing to provide to fit the boat with safety equipment, including a fire extinguisher, life jackets and first aid kit.
The court ruled to confiscate the vessel, named Khair Abu Yusuf and the illicit trawling net, and to fine the boat’s owner BD75 which is the market value of the 40kg of shrimp he illegally caught.
The 27-year-old defendant was convicted of steering the boat without a valid permit, as well as violating marine safety laws by sailing without enabling the vessel’s automatic identification system (AIS).
According to the verdict, the two vessels did not follow the International Regulations for Preventing Collisions at Sea.
A 15-year-old passenger who was with the sailors at the time, was not charged by prosecutors.
The sea tragedy was further outlined in court.
“It was on November 1 when the victim’s corpse was found by Qatari authorities when it floated to the shore of Ras Asheeraj,” read the ruling. On November 2, Mr Al Shraimi’s family members went to Qatar, accompanied by a Bahraini public security officer, and they were able to positively identify him.
“An autopsy was conducted, which found that the head injury itself could have killed him within minutes to hours, based on the extent of the injuries to his brain. It is possible that death from asphyxia or drowning only took a few minutes. The vital time window in which he could have been rescued was not used.
“The injury in the back of the victim’s head appears to be the result of an impact with a solid object that had a sharp or thin edge, like a rudder or a propeller. Immediate effects of such an impact would be a loss of consciousness. He would have been unable to move, or swim up to save his own life. He could not breathe as normal and could not stop water from entering his respiratory system.”
The GDN earlier reported that, during the time the victim was missing, his family and members of the public were hopeful that he might be found alive. However, they were devastated when they discovered that he had not survived. Mr Al Shraimi was buried in his hometown of Shahrakkan, leaving behind two young children.
At an earlier hearing, the Noukhada denied charges of accelerating at an inappropriate speed towards the other boat and of disregarding marine safety practices.
A member of the Coastguard crew, who was with the accused Noukhada, testified to the Public Prosecution stating they thought only three people were illegally trawling. They spotted the sailors attempting to cut the nets loose to hide what they were doing, he told the court.
After the collision, he recalled seeing one sailor fall, and claimed the Coastguard was unaware that there was an additional sailor who fell overboard. “They helped up the comrade that fell then fled the scene. We chased them for 45 minutes until they stopped. One of them told us that there was a missing person.”
The Noukhada testified that unsuccessful attempts were taken to locate Mr Al Shraimi. Why the Khair Abu Yusuf fled the scene was explained by the other two defendants. “We felt like the Coastguard would hit us again so I took over the steering and tried to flee.”
A series of videos of the night chase were played before judges during the trial.
zainab@gdnmedia.bh
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