FREIGHTER MYSTERY

Press, Volume CXV, Issue 33974, 15 October 1975, Page 19

FREIGHTER MYSTERY

iSurvivors make statements C.V.Z. Press Assn —Copyright) WEST PALM BEACH (Florida). October 14. The five survivors of the sunken Panamanian freighter Mimi have given statements To American officials investigating the crew’s role in the apparent murder of their four West German officers. Unconfirmed reports have indicated one of the five ■ crewmen stabbed the officers in an abortive attempt to take 'the ship to Cuba, and then 'sank the vessel. Mr Louis Gidel, a United States Immigration Office official said that the five seamen, four Indonesians and a Filipino cook, had given their statements to his office, the ■ F. 8.1., and the Coast Guard, .and that each would be ■examined carefully. “We hope to have this thing > sorted out and to have reached some conclusions by j tomorrow,” Mr Gidel said. ! The “Miami Herald” quotes ja source close to the investigation as saying that the murder of the four officers and the scuttling of the ship were the work of one of the Indonesians, Gun Supardi, who stabbed the men and chopped open sea cocks below the water lines to sink the ship. Captain Manfred Opperman, of the West German' freighter Lalli, which rescued' the five Mimi seamen from a lif-raft on Saturday, said that Supardi had confessed to the. murders and subsequent sinking.