THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Friday, July 5, 1996 TAG: 9607050130
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY BILL SIZEMORE, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: NORFOLK LENGTH: 86 lines
The wheels of justice are turning, but oh, so slowly.
Or so it seems to 28 Pakistani and Indian seamen who have been marooned in Hampton Roads for six months.
Their ship, the Liberian-registered freighter Pride of Donegal, was towed into port with engine trouble in mid-January and became mired in a legal wrangle after the crew and a variety of creditors filed claims seeking hundreds of thousands of dollars in back pay, repairs, fuel, supplies and services.
The men have not been paid in eight months. Some have been away from home as long as 13 months. They were virtual prisoners aboard the vessel for three months while it was anchored in the harbor and they had no way to get ashore.
The Peruvian bank that held the mortgage on the ship bought it at a court-ordered auction May 30 for $5.1 million, leading the crewmen to hope that soon they would get their back pay and a plane ticket home.
But five weeks later, they are still waiting.
While lawyers for the crew and the bank tussle over arcane issues of maritime law, the crewmen are holed up in the Howard Johnson Hotel in downtown Norfolk at the bank's expense, four to a room, with a meal allowance of $10 a day per man.
They say their families back home, deprived of income for eight months, are desperate.
``We are surviving, but we are concerned about our families, how they are surviving,'' said Syed Ijtaba Hussain Zeidi, the second engineer. ``I have already borrowed $17,000, and there is no hope of getting more.''
Zeidi said he telephoned home after the ship was sold and told his 8-year-old daughter he would be home soon. Two weeks later he called again with the news that the process was moving more slowly than he had hoped.
His daughter burst into tears.
``She said, `Papa, in the past you have never broken any promise. What happened to you now?' '' Zeidi said. ``I didn't know what to say.
``I don't even like to call now.''
Syed Shabbir Hussain Shah, the electrical engineer, who had been borrowing money at 20 percent interest to feed his extended family of 12, said he, too, is unable to borrow more and may now have to sell his house.
Within a one-week span last month, Shah said, his brother-in-law died and his nephew was murdered, and he couldn't even afford the price of a phone call to offer his condolences.
Foreign crews have been stranded in the local port before. But Charlotte Smith, director of the International Seamen's House, a mariners' haven in Norfolk, said she can't remember any that have been stuck this long.
She sends a van to the hotel each evening, and many of the crewmen ride over to the Seamen's House for fellowship and refreshments. Otherwise there is little to do except watch TV in their rooms.
Zeidi said he has resisted visiting the Seamen's House. Instead, he has gone out looking for odd jobs.
``I have two hands; I can work,'' he said. ``I don't want to be a burden.''
But no one would hire him, he said, fearing trouble with the authorities because he doesn't have the necessary papers.
``Mentally, we are finished,'' Zeidi said. ``Why our struggle doesn't end, I don't know.''
His crewmate Shah added: ``We can deal with problems at sea. But this problem, with these people - I don't know.''
At a hearing Tuesday in U.S. District Court, the counsel tables were overflowing with lawyers representing the bank, the crew and a host of other claimants.
There seemed to be little disagreement that getting the crew paid should be the first priority. The devil, as they say, is in the details.
``Don't you think it would be to everybody's advantage to get them headed home?'' Judge John A. MacKenzie asked at one point.
Yes, said David K. Sutelan, a Norfolk lawyer who represents the bank. ``But,'' he added, ``it's not a simple proposition.''
MacKenzie set another hearing for Wednesday to hash out the crewmen's claims with their lawyer, Benjamin M. Mason of Newport News, and Sutelan.
Meanwhile, the Pride of Donegal's new owners have manned it with a Peruvian crew and moved the vessel to Norshipco for repairs to its heavy-lift booms. It is getting a new flag, Panamanian, and a new name, Lobo de Mar, Spanish for ``sea wolf.''
A spokesman for the shipyard said the freighter should be ready to sail within a few days. That could be before its former crew departs. ILLUSTRATION: Color photo BILL TIERNAN/The Virginian-Pilot
Waqas Salman, left, the third mate, and Syed Sajjad Ul Hassan, the
chief engineer, while away another day in their room in the Howard
Johnson Hotel in downtown Norfolk. by CNB