High Court hearing on meat vessel

Press, 18 April 1980, Page 3

High Court hearing on meat vessel

The owner of the 4628-ton refrigerated meat carrier Pacific Fruit has filed an application in the High Court to ' have a $3 million writ against the ship set aside and the warrant for her arrest lifted. The application will be heard in the High Court at Christchurch on April 23 at 2.15 p.m. Until then, the vessel will remain at Lyttelton where she has been berthed and undergoing repairs since Mar h 31 while under arrest and in the legal custody of the registrar of the High Court at Wellington.

n The application will be . opposed by lawyers for the charterer of the ship, Nippon Yusen Kaisha, of Japan, 5 who this week let the chart ter lapse with the owner of > the vessel, Great Pacific Na- " vigation Company of Taipei, ' Taiwan. The Pacific Fruit was j brought to Lyttelton from t Timaru after she had dist charged a full cargo of froze i meat that had been re- [ jected by the Iraqi health ! authorities. 1 The writ and warrant on s behalf of the charterer was, t served on the ship’s master, f Captain Tsao, on April 3 i aboard the vessel as she was undergoing repairs at the

I No. 7 jetty. She had reportedly suffered damage when ! involved in a minor collision in the Strait of Singapore, | Her cargo of meat, 2000 tonnes of lamb valued at $4 million, had been certified as fit for human consumption when it was inspected at Basra by a New Zealand Ministry of Agriculture inspector but the Iraqi authorif s disagreed. j Speculation remains that j the Pacific Fruit’s cargo might have been rejected be-| cause the vessel, under her J former name of Ronirel, had at one time sailed under the 1 Israeli flag and may have, been blacklisted by the. Iraqis. •