Ukrainian Seamen to Be Released from Iraqi Jail

Mykola Mazurenko and Ivan Soshchenko, the captain and the first officer, respectively, of the Navstar-1, who were being held in Iraq’s Abu-Ghraib jail for smuggling fuel, are returning to Ukraine to serve their sentences, Foreign Ministry spokesman Markiyan Lubkivsky told journalists on June 17. He said that after a series of tough negotiations, Ukraine, the US, and Iraq agreed to sign a joint statement on extraditing the seamen to Ukraine so that they can serve the rest of their prison terms in this country. “After negotiations were concluded on June 15, Ukraine’s Charge d’Affaires in Iraq Anatoly Oliynyk and deputy head of the interim coalition administration Ambassador Richard Jones signed this statement,” Mr. Lubkivsky said. The statement specifies that a Ukrainian court must bring the ruling of Iraq’s Central Criminal Court in line with Ukraine’s current law. The Ukrainian side was also given the procedural documents, the Iraqi court’s ruling, copies of the laws under which the Ukrainian seamen were convicted, as well as a hospital case history of one of them. On June 16 the interim coalition administration of Iraq handed the Ukrainian seamen over to the Embassy of Ukraine. On the same day the embassy issued them traveling documents, civilian clothing, and, with the help of the US side, a one-week supply of medications.