Image from footage of murder at sea, found on a cellphone camera in Fiji.
SHARJAH
KHALID PORT, United Arab Emirates — The man bobbing in the sea raises
his arms in a seeming sign of surrender before he is shot in the head.
He floats face down as his blood stains the blue water.
A
slow-motion slaughter unfolds over the next 6 minutes and 58 seconds.
Three other men floating in the ocean, some clinging to what looks like
the wreckage of an overturned wooden boat, are surrounded by several
large white tuna longliners. The sky above is clear and blue; the sea
below, dark and choppy. As the ships’ engines idle loudly, at least 40
rounds are fired as the unarmed men are methodically picked off.
“Shoot,
shoot, shoot!” commands a voice over one of the ship’s loudspeakers as
the final man is killed. Soon after, a group of men on deck who appear
to be crew members laugh among themselves, then pose for selfies.
Weapons on the Water, Violence at Sea
Despite
dozens of witnesses on at least four ships, those killings remain a
mystery. No one even reported the incident — there is no requirement to
do so under maritime law nor any clear method for mariners, who move
from port to port, to volunteer what they know. Law enforcement
officials learned of the deaths only after a video of the killings was
found on a cellphone left in a taxi in Fiji last year, then posted on
the Internet.
With
no bodies, no identified victims and no exact location of where the
shootings occurred, it is unclear which, if any, government will take
responsibility for leading an investigation. Taiwanese fishing
authorities, who based on the video connected a fishing boat from Taiwan
to the scene but learned little from the captain, say they believe the
dead men were part of a failed pirate attack. But maritime security
experts, warning that piracy has become a convenient cover for sometimes
fatal score-settling, said it is just as likely that the men were local
fishermen in disputed waters, mutinied crew, castoff stowaways or
thieves caught stealing fish or bait.
“Summary execution, vigilantism, overzealous defense, call it what you will,” said Klaus Luhta, a lawyer with the International Organization of Masters, Mates & Pilots, a seafarers’ union. “This boils down just the same to a case of murder at sea and a question of why it’s allowed to happen.”
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