THREE AFRICAN STOWAWAYS

Press, Volume XCVII, Issue 28774, 20 December 1958, Page 17

THREE AFRICAN STOWAWAYS

Deportation Ordered

Three young natives of Tanganyika had been given two meals a day, one of bread and water and the other of rice, forced to do hard labour and were confined in very small quarters after they had given themselves up on the Dutch vessel Texel after stowing away at Dar Es Salaam, on November 15, said Mr P. G. S. Penlington in the Magistrate’s Court yesterday. The three natives, Oman Mohamedi, aged 20, - Athamani Bakari, aged 23, and Masa Islahi. aged 21. were ordered to be detained in custody for a period not exceeding one month, pending deportation, by Mr A. P. Blair, S.M. Before reading the charge the Clerk of the Court (Mr W L’Estrange) asked Mt Penlington, who appeared for the three defendants, if they could understand English. ‘‘Welk sort of.” he replied. , „ Sehior Detective-Sergeant J. B. McLean said the Texel had called at Fremantle, Western Australia, but -the police would not allow the natives to land. When the ship arrived at Lyttelton the captain requested the police to take the men into custody; and charge them. They had stowed away at Dar Es Salaam and on the first day at sea two of the defendants had given themselves up and the third man cAme out of hiding on the third day. Mr J. R. Woodward, who appeared for the Java and Pacific Line, the owners of the vessel, said he had been instructed to ask for the deportation of the defendants, and to ask that they be placed back on board the ship they had stowed away on. They would probably be placed ashore at Port Said or a neighbouring port and taken back to Dar Es Salaam. It was possible they would be taken into custody by the police at Wellington and Auckland when the Texel called there. The three defendants had been treated fairly harshly aboard the Texel, which had a crew of Dutch officers and Chinese seamen, and they had already had their punishment, said Mr Penlington when asking that a gaol sentence not be imposed. Two of the defendants had been to sea before and one of them was merely a schoolboy. They had no assets and the total funds among them consisted of 4s. Mr Penlington submitted that the penalty should be as light as possible in view of what had taken place from the time they were discovered when the ship was in the Indian Ocean to when it reached New Zealand.