Ship violated guidelines: CG
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While preliminary investigation here into the Italian ship firing affirmed that there were violations of both rules and guidelines on the part of the ship and its crew, the Italian side asserted in Delhi that both Italy and India only wanted truth to prevail.
In Kochi, refuting the claim of the Enrica Lexie crew that a suspected pirate attack led to last week's firing on fishermen, a report by the Coast Guard said the vessel never had a Graduated Response Plan against piracy, and it violated basic maritime rules and guidelines.
In Delhi, the visiting Italian deputy foreign minister Steffan de Mistura told the media, “Both India and the Italian people want truth to prevail, and truth will prevail by way of the ballistic test (meaning seizure and study of the weapons used for the firing from the ship).” Both in Delhi and Kochi, the Italians engaged in the discussions on the ship case spoke more in a conciliatory note on Friday.
As per the Coast Guard report, the ship violated the Alert Embankment Guidelines issued by the International Maritime Organisation (IMO).
The AEG stipulated, among other things, that armed security personnel or private maritime security companies (PMSC) on board should provide a detailed Graduated Response Plan to a pirate attack as part of its teams’ operational procedures, but this was not done.
The IMO regulations had made it clear that the armed personnel should take all reasonable steps to avoid the use of force. “If force is used, it should be in a manner consistent with applicable law. In no case should the use of force exceed what is strictly necessary,” it had said.
And in all cases it should be proportionate to the threat and appropriate to the situation
The Coast Guard report said the Italian armed personnel failed to resort to graduate use of force. "Use of force by the vessel is illegal since the fishing vessel St Antony was 100 metres away from the vessel and was not making attempts at boarding the vessel and there was also no threat to life on board Enrica Lexie" it said.
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