Russians ‘Could Have Detained Aust. Crew’
(N.Z. Frees Association —Copyright)
DARWIN, August 5.
The captain of the Russian prawning ship Van Gogh said in Darwin today that he could have detained the crew of an Australian trawler for piracy and had them tried in a Russian court.
“And the penalty for piracy in the Soviet Union is death,” Commodore Alexei Solyanik said. “We were 17 miles from shore in the Gulf of Carpentaria when a shot was fired by an Australian fisherman who was ignorant, of international law. We had the right to take those fishermen and treat them as pirates. If we had acted as they did we could have been tried in the same way.” The Van Gogh is refuelling at Darwin on her way home to Vladivostock. Commodore Solyanik said
differences with Australian prawn fishermen in the gulf had begun because the Australians were not flying the correct international signals. “There has been a lot of foolishness,” said the commodore. "We have a big fleet operating alongside Bulgarian, Rumanian, Japanese, and German ships on the African coast, and we have never- had an incident like this with them. . . . The Japanese trawlers are catching bigger hauls than we are, but nobody complains about them.”
Permanent link to this item
https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/CHP19680806.2.116
Bibliographic details
Press, Volume CVIII, Issue 31750, 6 August 1968, Page 17
Word Count
206Russians ‘Could Have Detained Aust. Crew’ Press, Volume CVIII, Issue 31750, 6 August 1968, Page 17
Using This Item
Stuff Ltd is the copyright owner for the Press. You can reproduce in-copyright material from this newspaper for non-commercial use under a Creative Commons BY-NC-SA 3.0 New Zealand licence. This newspaper is not available for commercial use without the consent of Stuff Ltd. For advice on reproduction of out-of-copyright material from this newspaper, please refer to the Copyright guide.
Acknowledgements
This newspaper was digitised in partnership with Christchurch City Libraries.
Log in