Government incompetence and "wicked collusion" between a ferry owner and a government agency resulted in the drowning of more than 1,000 people in the Red Sea in February when an Egyptian passenger ship sank, according to the findings of a preliminary parliamentary investigation released on Wednesday.
Touching the highest levels of government, including Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak and the military command, though without directly naming either, the report crushed the government's earlier efforts to blame the captain alone for the sinking of the ferry, al Salam Boccaccio 98. The captain, Sayyed Omar, left the ship before it sank, witnesses said, but has not been accounted for.
The report, by a committee of 23 members of Parliament, directly attributed the disaster to the Egyptian Authority on Maritime Safety and to the ship's owner, al Salam Maritime Transport Co., which is controlled by Mamdouh Ismail, a member of the upper house of Parliament appointed by Mubarak.
The report's authors vowed "to beat with an iron fist on everyone who allowed himself to tamper with the standards, laws, and rules for the sake of achieving cheap worldly gains, even if the cost was to kill people, drowning and destroying the lives of many Egyptian families and spreading calamity and catastrophe across Egypt."
The document found fault at many levels: with a political system that allowed Ismail to run a ferry service while also serving in Parliament; with the maritime authority responsible for overseeing the ports; and with a military-affiliated command that began a rescue operation hours after receiving a distress signal with the location of the ship.
The committee also castigated the government for failing to provide facilities for family members who showed up at the port.
After bodies were recovered, the report said, "it was up to those who wanted to identify the body of a relative for burial to roam between hospitals and morgues across 10 different cities and thousands of kilometers to go through the faces of the dead."
The government did not respond to the report. Magdy Rady, the government's chief spokesman, did not return calls or text messages asking for comment.
"We are not going to let go, because this is a country's reputation and people's lives," said Muhammad Anwar Essmat el-Sadat, a member of Parliament who helped write the report. "We insist on following this."
The ferry went down in the Red Sea just after midnight on Feb. 3, en route from Duba, Saudi Arabia, to Safaga, Egypt. The ship was about 35 years old and packed with more than 1,400 passengers when it sank. Most of those on board were Egyptians working in Saudi Arabia.
The report was forthright in linking the tragedy to an overall atmosphere of cronyism and corruption. But the findings only confirmed what human rights organizations, families of those lost at sea, and members of Parliament have been saying since the ship sank: that it was overcrowded and in poor condition, and that the government agencies responsible for ensuring public safety had failed in their mandates.
"Even though this is only the initial report, it is very disturbing because it says that there is collusion and corruption," said Muhammad Saad el-Katatny, a member of Parliament who represents the largest opposition bloc, made up of independents linked to the Muslim Brotherhood.
The ship's owner, Ismail, left Egypt and has been staying in London, where he could not be reached for comment. He has steadfastly insisted that he and his company are innocent of any wrongdoing.
In a full-page advertisement earlier this month in al Ahram, the semi-official Egyptian newspaper, he said a British insurer had concluded that the ship was fitted with all necessary safety equipment.
Hesham Kassem, a human rights worker and opposition leader, said that in spite of the report, he had little hope that those responsible would be held accountable. He questioned the government's allowing Ismail to leave Egypt before asking Parliament to lift his parliamentary immunity so he could be questioned.
Kassem said he doubted anyone would be prosecuted because, he noted, the prosecutor was appointed by the president.
"I wouldn't dare to call it a step toward accountability," Kassem said of the report. "The minimum is, something like this should come out. We have seen many cases like this that should have been prosecuted properly, and they are shelved."
A Chinese scientist was arrested while arriving in the US at Detroit airport, the second case in days involving the alleged smuggling of biological material, authorities said on Monday. The scientist is accused of shipping biological material months ago to staff at a laboratory at the University of Michigan. The FBI, in a court filing, described it as material related to certain worms and requires a government permit. “The guidelines for importing biological materials into the US for research purposes are stringent, but clear, and actions like this undermine the legitimate work of other visiting scholars,” said John Nowak, who leads field
Swedish campaigner Greta Thunberg was deported from Israel yesterday, the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs said, the day after the Israeli navy prevented her and a group of fellow pro-Palestinian activists from sailing to Gaza. Thunberg, 22, was put on a flight to France, the ministry said, adding that she would travel on to Sweden from there. Three other people who had been aboard the charity vessel also agreed to immediate repatriation. Eight other crew members are contesting their deportation order, Israeli rights group Adalah, which advised them, said in a statement. They are being held at a detention center ahead of a
‘THE RED LINE’: Colombian President Gustavo Petro promised a thorough probe into the attack on the senator, who had announced his presidential bid in March Colombian Senator Miguel Uribe Turbay, a possible candidate in the country’s presidential election next year, was shot and wounded at a campaign rally in Bogota on Saturday, authorities said. His conservative Democratic Center party released a statement calling it “an unacceptable act of violence.” The attack took place in a park in the Fontibon neighborhood when armed assailants shot him from behind, said the right-wing Democratic Center, which was the party of former Colombian president Alvaro Uribe. The men are not related. Images circulating on social media showed Uribe Turbay, 39, covered in blood being held by several people. The Santa Fe Foundation
NUCLEAR WARNING: Elites are carelessly fomenting fear and tensions between nuclear powers, perhaps because they have access to shelters, Tulsi Gabbard said After a trip to Hiroshima, US Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard on Tuesday warned that “warmongers” were pushing the world to the brink of nuclear war. Gabbard did not specify her concerns. Gabbard posted on social media a video of grisly footage from the world’s first nuclear attack and of her staring reflectively at the Hiroshima Peace Memorial. On Aug. 6, 1945, the US obliterated Hiroshima, killing 140,000 people in the explosion and by the end of the year from the uranium bomb’s effects. Three days later, a US plane dropped a plutonium bomb on Nagasaki, leaving abut 74,000 people dead by the