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'I was sent to prison only because France wanted to show they were doing something about the oil spill'

Ranvir Nayyar in Paris

The Indian captain of a ship that broke into two near the French coast in December, causing the largest oil spill in Europe, is considering suing the French authorities for wrongful detention and infringement of his human rights.

``I will consult my friends and lawyers in India, before taking a decision. But this incident is all about the infringement of basic human rights. Right from the very beginning, the detention was wrongful. I have been made a scapegoat and have been forced to go through a very humiliating and tormenting experience for no fault of mine. And the authorities knew it as well,'' Captain Kanwar Sundar Mathur told rediff.com just before leaving France for India, after having been forced to spend nearly two months as a hostage of the French.

The experience has deeply scarred Mathur. ``It has been a very humiliating experience. Being paraded all around handcuffed. Being locked up without even being told why. Being in jail with convicts, even though I was not at all guilty. I don't know who is responsible for the accident. But I know, it is not me. And yet, who went to the prison? Nobody except me. This has left a very very bad impression about the judicial system here,'' says Mathur, who is so shocked by the incident that he is planning to give up the merchant navy career entirely.

``I just want to relax and forget the past. This experience has changed my vision entirely. First you have a skirmish with death at high seas and then you face such treatment - despite the fact that I performed my duties in an entirely responsible manner,'' says Mathur, who is headed for his home town of Udaipur early next week.

This is how Captain Mathur, the Indian captain of Erika, describes his feelings towards the two-month-long episode that saw him being imprisoned alongside ordinary criminals and being blamed for the worst oil spill to ever hit the European coasts.

The story began for Mathur, who is in his late thirties, on December 11 last year when Erika, a 25-year-old tanker carrying nearly 35,000 tonnes of fuel oil from the French port of Dunkerque to Italy, got caught up in terrible weather and broke into two, leading to the oil spill that has left over 600 kilometres of the French coast totally covered with thick sheets of oil.

Mathur noticed the first signs of trouble on December 11 when the ship began listing to a side and a few cracks appeared on the deck. With the ship being tossed about and rocked by waves as high as eight metres and a very strong head wind, Mathur sensed danger and immediately sent out his first distress signal. A few hours later however he was able to rectify the listing of the ship and cancelled his distress signal since he believed he could carry on with the normal course.

But within a few hours, one of the sideplates of the ship ripped apart and the ship was again in danger. Mathur immediately contacted the nearest French port of Donges and asked for permission to come in. And early in the morning on December 12, the ship was in danger again and Mathur says it was at about 0530 hours that he sent out his second distress signal. The rescue operations began by about 0800 hours and by 1030 hours, Mathur was the last of the ship crew to be rescued from the ship.

Mathur says all the time he took all the measures possible to ensure the safety of his crew and to ensure that the oil did not leak out. But within hours of his coming on land, Mathur found himself being arrested on precisely these two counts.

``I was in my hotel on December 13. The police came to my hotel and said they wanted to ask some questions. They took me to the station and I was kept there the whole day. I was not even told that I was being arrested or what the charges were. Simply put in the lock up, along with convicts,'' recounts Mathur.

In fact, Mathur was not to learn of the charges for the next three days, while he was kept in the prison, with hardly any access to his lawyers.

At that point even the Indian embassy was denied consular access to Mathur - a common courtesy extended even to most dangerous criminals.

On December 15, when Mathur was taken to a court for the first time, his lawyers pleaded for bail, but even that was refused and Mathur was locked up once again.

``Rejecting the bail petition, the judge said she felt that vested interests would try to influence me or pressure me and hence wanted to protect me from this by locking me up in the prison. If she really wanted to protect me, she could have asked the police to guard me or even keep in a hotel room with limited access. But why lock me up in the prison, even when I was not guilty of anything?'' asks an angered and saddened Mathur.

``I am angry that I was sent to prison only because the French authorities wanted to show to the public that they were doing something about the oil spill, even though they fully well knew that I was not guilty. But have they touched anyone else? I have been made a scapegoat in this country.''

A position that was very clearly vindicated in the report of the inquiry committee appointed by the French government, which highly commended Mathur and his crew for being the only ones involved in the whole incident who acted responsibly.

Yet, Mathur was imprisoned till December 22 and released on bail only after there was a huge outcry in the French and European media and amongst the shipping industry in Europe.

But even then, Mathur was a literal hostage of the French authorities as he was banned from leaving Paris and his passport was still confiscated.

Yet, two months later, despite the committee's report, the judge told Mathur that though he was allowed to return to India, he had not been exonerated fully and he could be called back for judicial proceedings in the future.

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