Issue link: https://maltatoday.uberflip.com/i/789855
maltatoday, WEDNESDAY, 22 FEBRUARY 2017 News 74 dead asylum-seekers wash up on Libyan beach THE bodies of at least 74 asylum- seekers have been found washed up on the shore in western Libya after the engine of their inf latable boat was stolen, coastguard and aid officials said yesterday. The Libyan Red Crescent said on Tuesday the bodies had been found the previous morning on the coast of the city of Zawiya, and aid workers had spent six hours recovering them, with more dead believed to be in the vicinity. Spokesman Mohamed al-Mis- rati said that the asylum-seekers appeared to have died during the past two days. They were all adults, mostly from sub-Saharan African countries, and all but three were men. A torn rubber boat was found nearby and it was likely that more asylum-seekers had drowned in the incident, as such vessels usu- ally carry about 120 people, al- Misrati added. The Zawiya coastguard posted a video that showed the asylum- seekers' boat, with no engine, as the first bodies were recovered. The Red Crescent published pictures of the bodies laid out in white and black body bags along the beach. Some of the images showed a semi-def lated grey rub- ber boat of the kind typically pro- vided by migrant smugglers, with wooden boards inserted to rein- force the f loor, pulled up half-way onto the beach close by. Joel Millman, a spokesman for the International Organisation for Migration (IOM), said a local staff member had reported that "traffickers came and removed the engine from the boat and left the craft adrift". "This is not a only horrible number of deaths in one incident but it strikes us as something that we haven't really seen much of, which is either deliberate punish- ment or murder of asylum-seek- ers," Millman said. Libya is the main departure point for asylum-seekers hoping to reach Europe by sea and people smugglers have taken advantage of the chaos gripping Libya since the 2011 revolution to greatly boost their lucrative trade. Asylum-seekers generally at- tempt the crossing in f limsy in- f latable craft loaded with small amounts of fuel which are in- tended to get them only as far as European rescue vessels sta- tioned in international waters. Most leave from the stretch of Libyan coast between Tripoli and the Tunisian border to the west. The bodies of those who drown are frequently found washed up on Libyan shores. Last year a record 181,000 asy- lum-seekers crossed between Libya and Italy. More than 4,500 are known to have died. The IOM said the latest incident raised the total number of deaths this year to more than 365. As of Sunday, 10,120 had ar- rived compared with 6,589 be- tween January 1 and 18 February last year. Having largely closed off sea crossings between Turkey and Greece last year, the European Union is searching for ways to stem the f low of asylum-seekers from Libya. Earlier this month EU leaders offered Libya money and other assistance to try to reduce the numbers departing across the Mediterranean. The deal in- volves blocking asylum-seekers at sea and sending back to Libya to be held in holding camps. Aid groups criticised the move, say- ing such plans exposed asylum- seekers to further risks and abus- es within Libya. Asylum seekers in Libya are of- ten victims of torture, rape and murder by militias who are also involved in human trafficking. In the absence of an army or a regular police force in Libya, sev- eral militias act as coastguards but are often accused themselves of complicity or even involve- ment in the people-smuggling business. Red Crescent workers collected the bodies of migrants on Monday from a beach near the town of Zawiya, Libya Government yet to publish CapitalOne inquiry report PAUL COCKS NO date was set for the publica- tion of an inquiry board's conclu- sions into allegations raised in a MaltaToday report in 2016, which claimed that a police investigation on money laundering was not pur- sued by the Maltese police when Nationalist MP Beppe Fenech Ad- ami's name cropped up during the investigations. Three retired judges – Joseph Camilleri, Lawrence Quintano and Philip Sciberras – were entrusted with the inquiry into the police's handling of the CapitalOne investi- gation last October. MaltaToday reported that a Janu- ary 2013 police investigation that had raised the spectre of money laundering was never pursued by the Maltese police, ostensibly when police found out that Fenech Adami was the director of a fiduci- ary services company handling the affairs of CapitalOne Investment Group. In a statement issued yesterday, the government claimed that the investigation directly affected im- portant national institutions and that the report would therefore "be analysed before being eventually published". The report revealed that, acting on a Dutch request for assistance in late 2012, Maltese police were look- ing into the banking transactions of CapitalOne, a company connected to Robert Soogea, a Dutchman whose property was raided by po- lice in a drug bust. In an investigation carried out jointly by MaltaToday and free- lance journalist Mark Hollings- worth, sources privy to the Dutch investigation expressed frustration that not all evidence connected to banking transactions by Capital- One were passed on to them by the Maltese police. Both Beppe Fenech Adami and Robert Abdilla Castillo – direc- tors of Baltimore Fiduciary, which acted as the nominee company that 'owned' CapitalOne's shares – denied knowing anything of this investigation, even though an asset freeze was ordered at the request of the Dutch police. At the time, Beppe Fenech Adami was parliamentary assistant for home affairs, handling the port- folio for then prime minister Law- rence Gonzi. He has denied having been spoken to about this case by police at the time. Beppe Fenech Adami has denied having ever been told by police or the bank of any asset freeze or money laundering investigation into CapitalOne