Compensation for family of Aust, skipper killed in Gulf

Press, 6 October 1987, Page 10

Compensation for family of Aust, skipper killed in Gulf

NZPA-AP Dubai Iraq will pay compensation to the family of an Australian skipper killed when Iraqi warplanes attacked his shrimp trawler near Iran, the vessel’s managing company said yesterday. Vince Lambardo, managing director of the Northern Bluff Fisheries Company, of Perth, told reporters that Iraq agreed to pay the compensation at the intervention of the Australian Government Mr Lambardo did not say how much would be paid. Robert Wilcox, aged 39, and father of two teenage sons, was killed on Thursday when Iraqi jet fighters fired a heat-seek-

ing French-made Exocet missile at his trawler, the 25m Shenton Bluff. It was about 32km off the Iranian coast in the northern Gulf, according to company representatives.

The same representatives earlier said the rest of the crew were three Iranians and three Australians and they had been plucked safely from the water, but Mr Lambardo identified one of the crewmen as Klaus Hansen, of Denmark, and said he was returned to Dubai and was suffering from unspecified injuries. Another Australian crewman was back safely in Dubai and four Iranians were sent back to Iran, he said.

Mr Lambardo confirmed that his company has recalled its full tenunit fleet to Dubai and future operations were under review. The trawlers were on contract to the Iranian Government from a joint venture project by the Australian firm with a United Arab Emirates firm, Al-Aquilli. Mr Lambardo said the attack by the Iraqi pilot was “deliberate.” The incident was reminiscent of the May 17 strike on the U.S.S. Stark. Missiles fired from Iraqi warplanes devastated the United States frigate, killing 37 American crewmen.

The United States accepted an apology from

the Iraqi Government for the attack which it said it was accidental and had been directed at what was believed to be an Iranian frigate. The heat-seeking waterskimming Exocet missiles are fired from great distances and pilots of the raiding planes identify targets on their radars from the same distances. Mr Lambardo thought the Iraqi pilot could not have mistaken a 25m trawler for a tanker.

Iraq put an air and sea blockade on Iran’s key oil loading terminal at Kharg Island at the head of the Gulf early in 1984, attacking tankers sailing to or from the facility in a bid to throttle its foe’s oilbased economy.