A group of six British ex-military servicemen were hired as armed guards aboard a ship to protect the ship from pirates. After a storm at sea, it was decided that the ship would make an emergency stop at the Indian port city of Chennai to pick up supplies. The ship was intercepted by the Indian coastguard even before they docked at the port. All 10 crew members and the 25 guards who were aboard the ship were arrested. Each would end up being sentenced to 5 years in prison, because the guards carried guns. They were accused of being illegally armed in Indian waters (though a court would eventually rule that was not the case four years later). Indian authorities said that the guns and ammunition found aboard the boat had not been properly declared. The crew argued that their weapons were lawfully held for the purposes of guarding against pirates. They had all the required documentation for their weapons, issued by the UK government, and their presence in Indian waters was justified because they needed to pick up emergency supplies amid stormy weather. It was October 12, 2013 when they had first been detained. The crew were initially held in prison, but then due to extensive media coverage and pressure from the UK government, they were eventually granted bail after almost six months. They would have to wait for the case to wind its way through the courts and were not allowed to leave India during this time. They slept in hostels and hotels. On July 10, 2014, a Madras High Court judge initially dismissed the charges against the crew and armed guards. (Although the captain was still to be punished for the ship having been refueled with subsidized diesel fuel) However, Indian prosecutors appealed the decision of the High Court, and the case was heard by India's Supreme Court a year later (July 1, 2015), which overturned the earlier decision. Supreme Court judges Vikramjit Sen and Abhay Manohar Sapre wrote in their opinion that "The very fact that huge quantity of arms and ammunition were recovered from the possession of the crew members from the vessel and they were unable to satisfy their legal possession over such arms/ammunition is sufficient to attract the provisions of Arms Act." On January 11, 2016, the crew was sentenced to imprisonment by the judge of Tuticorin District Principal Sessions Court. The crew was immediately taken into custody again and had to go back to prison. On November 27, 2017, the crew and guards were acquitted again. The judge ordered that they should be immediately released, but they were still held in prison for some time after this while prosecutors decided whether they would challenge the new verdict. They were finally released and allowed to go home in early December 2017, a little more than four years after first being detained. As you might expect, the prison conditions were very bad. At times, more than 20 prisoners slept in the same cell, at other times only 3 or 4, in a cell that was about 8 by 10 feet. Diarrhea and vomiting were common in the prison due to the poor cleanliness and food which often was not fresh. They were oftentimes not given enough food, and had to subsist mostly on only potatoes and carrots. The food was just dumped on the floor. There was hole in the floor for a toilet. There was a severe ant infestation in the prison, and rats that were the size of small cats. They were housed in the prison with Iranian drug dealers (methamphetamine), Nigerian criminal gang members, and Sri Lankan Tamil Tiger militants. One of the guards, Nick Dunn, gave an interview about the horrendous prison conditions. He says he lost over 10 kilograms (22 pounds) body weight in prison. I Was Wrongfully Accused Of Terrorism And Locked In Hellish Indian Jail - Minutes With LADbible TV (video) You can tell from the interview in the video that this man was very traumatized by his experience, he's almost in tears as he recalls the memories. Nick Dunn explained what was probably a motive for the prosecution against them. "In 2012, there were two Italian Marines who murdered two local fishermen. It transpired that the killings were not convictable due to them citing the belief of piracy presence, which caused an uproar in the Indian media, resulting in authorities thirsty for blood to appease rising tumult amongst the Indian population." He added "There's absolutely no way the authorities would come out to investigate us when we weren’t doing anything wrong. Everything was up in the air, with different organizations coming onto the vessel, checking our weapons. It emerged that after accusations of a completely unfounded terrorist plot, to attack a nuclear power plant, that the authorities decided to frame Nick and five others with illegal weapons charges. Weapons that one month previously, had been given the seal of approval at a Mumbai proof house (in India)." (Surviving Hell: The Nick Dunn Story, Samantha Yardley, Muscle and Health, December 9, 2020) In addition to the six British nationals, the crew consisted of 3 Ukrainians, 14 Estonians and 12 Indians. The ship was owned by the US-based company AdvanFort, and at the time had just disembarked from Oman and was headed to Sri Lanka. The ship was not actually yet within Indian territorial waters when it was intercepted, but was in the Indian customs enforcement zone. "The Seaman Guard Ohio was anchored barely 3.8 nautical miles from the baseline from which Indian territorial waters commence." (US vessel was anchored close to baseline Investigators rebut owner's claim that ship was outside Indian waters, S. Vijay Kumar, The Hindu, October 24, 2013) Allegedly, "the base line drawn on the out of date sea chart by the authorities was drawn by an incompetent witness, a radio operator in fact in pencil." ("Madras HC acquits all crew members of US anti-piracy ship Seaman Guard Ohio", L. Saravanan, Times of India, Nov 27, 2017) Shown on a map, the true location of the ship at the time seems to be about halfway between the southern point of India and Sri Lanka, but just a little closer towards India. It was outside the baseline set by the United Nations Convention which would mark India's territorial waters.
If what was explained in the story is true, it sounds like the guns were in fact registered in India, but either police or some of the Indian authorities lied or possibly altered the records to make it appear the guns had not been registered. Which then automatically made it a crime, under Indian law, to have guns. This shows one of the potential problems with laws that require gun registration. Even if you actually complied with the law, theoretically it could still be possible for unscrupulous government officials to use those guns as legal justification to imprison you, since being able to prove that the guns were registered is not easy when government claims not to have a record of it. And what happens if an international ship truly does have to make an emergency stop in another country's territorial waters, a country that they were not prepared or originally planning to be in? Sometimes during intense storms, ships can be blown off course or lose their ability to navigate.
The British government did exert some diplomatic pressure on India to release them. This was after the case got intense coverage in the British media and a petition with 130,000 signatures was collected by the men's families and submitted to the UK government, asking for assistance. "Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson has agreed it was time six Britons languishing in an Indian jail were brought home. Prime Minister Theresa May raised their plight with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi at the recent G20 summit. Former Conservative Foreign Office minister Sir Hugo Swire told Mr Johnson in the Commons: 'Whilst I welcome the fact the Prime Minister raised the issue with Mr Modi at the G20, can I urge you to focus your efforts on the chief minister of Tamil Nadu and to seek a meeting with her urgently? It's almost four years since our boys have been languishing in jail there, I visited them myself. But it's time, frankly, that they were brought home.' Mr Johnson replied he was "absolutely right" and he would look at the possibility of talking to the chief minister of Tamil Nadu. 'Whether we will be any more successful with her in making our points, I will ascertain, but we will leave no stone unturned,' Mr Johnson said." (Chennai Six jailed in India: Boris Johnson vows to help Britons, BBC, 11 July 2017)
they should have been more forceful. Like Joetato should've been with AMERICAN citizens held by the Hamas scum in Gaza.
In case you are unaware, the UK mostly has good relations with India (especially since India is a former British colony). The issue is, India is, for the most part, a very Third World country, with plenty of poverty, low living standards, corruption and incompetence throughout government. As just one indicator of how low the living standards are in that country, in addition to being sentenced to serve 5 years in prison, they were also ordered to pay a fine of 3000 Rs each, which in 2016 was equivalent to only 44.72 US dollars. The amount of that fine is so low and trivial to anyone living in the UK or US that I thought it was not even worth mentioning. For comparison, the cost of staying in a hostel in Chennai was only about 10 US dollars per night (in 2016).
I know that fact-one of my best college friends is a Raj-they live in Dubai now. He attended one of England's finest prep school (Rugby) and his father was a high ranking Indian officer serving with Montgomery. Several of the archers I coach are Indian, their parents all were born and raised in India.
It's totally off topic, but let me point out that the Indian immigrants you see in the US or UK are more like "the cream of the crop" of the people in India. The ordinary "average" and poorest Indians usually do not make it that far, and are not able to get an immigration visa. Lots of shocking stuff goes on India. see this thread, for example: India: 12-year-old girl raped and bleeding, Asks for help but is shooed away
related thread, involving international ship disputes: Iran seizes Greek tanker, in retribution for US seizing tanker carrying Iranian oil (in 'Middle East' section, May 30, 2022)
so we send all our jobs to India, and they don't support the right to own guns, Republicans gonna turn against them then, right?
Bigley. I'd want some sort of signed guarantee. I think in this ideal Vedic system though, even the poorest Shudra lives like an enlightened King. (When all the laws of nature are working properly).
the better belief is that you move up and down the system, that way nicer to those below you as you will experience it too someday if you mistreat someone, you may have to walk a lifetime in their shoes to learn what it's like
I know that-two of the attorneys I worked with for two decades were first generation Greeks. Same with one of my best friends at Yale. I learned a lot about the country from them.
I am disappointed by the caliber of intellectual discussion in this thread so far. And I see no comments that have anything to do with the main issues that should be raised by this story. It almost seems like none of you are capable of seeing the point.
This is the sort of insanity the left seeks for the people of the United States Don't ever think otherwise.
In my youth I had this dream of buying a small ocean-going boat, something similar to a WW2 PT-boat (which if I'm honest was the primary progenitor of this dream), putting some armor and guns on it, and protecting freighters and cruise ships from pirates. A small amount of investigation into the complexities of international maritime laws killed that dream. It would be literally impossible to operate a private armed vessel without either A- being a member of a nation's military or B- being legally considered a pirate in most nations waters. The only thing that surprises me about this story is the the captain of the ship didn't predict that precisely this would innevitably happen eventually.
