BIMCO participates in meeting with INTERPOL on piracy investigation

News was prepared under the information support of Online Daily Newspaper on Hellenic and international Shipping "Hellenic Shipping News".

31 Jul 2010

BIMCO together with among others OCIMF, INTERTANKO, ICS, IMB, UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) and the Federal German Police – participated in a meeting in INTERPOL’s headquarters in Lyon. The meeting was chaired by Mr. Pierre St. Hilaire, Assistant Director Directorate of Legal Affairs, INTERPOL, and the primary purpose was to discuss preservation of evidence in piracy cases.
The meeting recognized that a multiplicity of stakeholders (law enforcement from flag states, home countries of crew, home country of cargo interests, insurers, intelligence communities, military) would likely be interested in evidence and witness statements from crews from piracy stricken ships. In order to make the collection of such information as efficient as possible and as gentle as possible for the crew members, there was general agreement that there could be merit in establishing some form of centralized piracy investigation structure and also draft guidelines on Best Practice to Masters and crews for the preservation of evidence in the period from the release of a hijacked ship and until the ship arrives in safe port, ready for crime scene investigation. In this regard, INTERPOL has now agreed to further investigate these possibilities. The work is expected to progress over the following weeks, and will be undertaken in close co-operation with BIMCO and other shipping organizations.
Finally, INTERPOL encouraged organizations and ship owners to share experiences etc. regarding piracy with INTERPOL in order to facilitate the investigation and prosecution of pirates.

Source: BIMCO