Fresnel jail skipper,, mate of Aust. trawler

Press, 20 December 1986, Page 10

Fresnel jail skipper,, mate of Aust. trawler

NZPA-AAP Sydney Two Australians, John Chadderton and Alastair Annandale, were sentenced yesterday to six months prison by a court on the Indian Ocean island of Reunion after being found guilty of illegal fishing and refusing to obey an order to stop.

Two other Australians, four New Zealanders, and a Swede, crew on the Southern Raider, were released two weeks ago after drug charges laid against them were dropped by French authorities. Two of the New Zealanders, both Mahia fishermen, are now on Mauritius seeking a flight home. Chadderton, the skipper of the Panamanian-regis-tered trawler, and Annandale, the first mate, both from Perth, were also fined 10,000 French francs ($2944) by a Magistrate’s Court in Reunion’s capital of Saint Denis.

The men are under judicial control while an appeal against the verdict is lodged.

Chadderton and Annandale were arrested with 21 other crew on October

8 after their boat had been sunk by a French Navy vessel near the French island of St Paul. The Court was told that the Southern Raider was fired upon after it had ignored orders to stop. Defence counsel, Mr Jean-Francois Bournod, said yesterday that the verdict and sentence was a “scandal.”

“I still firmly believe that the offences have not been proved. “The Court is trying to set an example by punishing what is viewed here as direct Australian interference in French affairs.

“It’s quite incredible,” Mr Bournod said.

Last week, the prosecutor, Mr Lagarde, in recommending the maximum sentence against the sailors, said Chadderton was a “representative of a Government which voted against France on the question of New Caledonia in the United Nations, and a (representative of a) country which contests the French presence in the Pacific and Indian Oceans.” Mr Bournod said that he would appeal against

the verdict and sentence, but this was unlikely to be heard before February and March. In the meantime, Chadderton and Annandale would remain under judicial control in the island.

Annandale, aged 43, said the verdict was not unexpected “since the French judicial system hasn’t changed since the Bastille.”