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Where there is no law, but every man does what is right in his own eyes, there is the least of real liberty
Henry M. Robert

UKRAINIAN SEAMEN RETURN FROM US

28 September, 1999 - 00:00

A jail in Houston, Texas, held for over three months four Ukrainian citizens, crew members of the China Breeze belonging to a Greek company: Captain Serhiy Kurdiukov, Second Mate Serhiy Kruhliak, Third Mate Oleh Khmyznykov, and sailor Serhiy Lobykovsky. US authorities have indicted them for smuggling drugs. (According to US law enforcement bodies, there were four tons of cocaine worth $400 million on board the China Breeze.) The rest of the crew, fifteen Ukrainians and three Greeks, were detained as material witnesses.

Representatives of IREX ProMedia pointed out to The Day that our seamen plead not guilty, claiming they were framed by the Greek owners of the ship. Incidentally, the owners official representative, the ship's first mate, disappeared after the crew was detained.

As The Day was told early last week, the arrested were being held under hard conditions (in general purpose cells holding 25-30 inmates) and were being subjected to psychological pressure aimed at forcing them to admit their guilt. The accused could have faced a term of up to life imprisonment. “But what worries us most is the complete inaction of official Ukrainian authorities. Since May 27, when the vessel was stopped in the Caribbean and the Ukrainian citizens were arrested, neither representatives of the official Ukrainian authorities nor the Ukrainian embassy in the US have shown any interest in their plight, let alone rendered assistance,” the press center noted last week.

Families of the arrested Ukrainian seamen have turned for help to the UN, Council of Europe, Verkhovna Rada, General Prosecutor's Office of Ukraine, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and the mass media. The Public Council of Ukraine NGO has also taken up the American case.

The Houston branch of Federal District Court of South Texas was to hear No. 99371, on October 19, with charges against four Ukrainian members of the China Breeze crew. At a news conference at the IREX Pro- Media press center on September 21, Natalia Kurdiukova, wife of the arrested Ukrainian captain, stated that her husband, along with Second Mate Serhiy Kruhliak, Third Mate Oleh Khmyznykov, and seaman Serhiy Lobikovsky, were formally accused of conspiracy, while on board the China Breeze while under US jurisdiction, to obtain four tons of cocaine worth $400 million, purporting to distribute it by selling packs each weighing five kilograms and over.

Mrs. Kurdiukova further stated that the Ukrainian crew was recruited for the Greek ship flying the Panamanian flag by Odesa's Meet Ocean Company, stressing that “When our husbands arrived in Athens the Greek owner said the ship needed repair and later informed them that they would be paid after delivering a shipment of sugar from Cuba to Portugal. Our men did not know about any other cargo on- board.”

She also said that the China Breeze was stopped by British and US warships in the Caribbean Sea. “And then a team of armed foreign sailors burst on board the China Breeze like pirates. They ordered the captain off the bridge and locked the crew in one of the cabins. After that the ship was tugged to Houston.”

Mrs. Kurdiukova claims that it was anyone's guess why the ship figured in the bill of indictment as an American one. Or what has come of the First Mate, a Greek responsible for the cargo.

Oksana Sekundant, wife of Serhiy Kruhliak, stated, “Our men each left with a clean bill of health, as attested by the medical board.” It has since transpired that the ship's captain was found to have tuberculosis at the Houston jail, and her own husband has kidney problems.

“We know that our men were hit in the head with submachine gun butts and clubbed in the small of their backs when arrested. Before they are brought to court hearings starting at 3 p.m., they are awakened at 2 a.m., ordered to strip, and locked in a concrete dungeon to seven in the morning,” Mrs. Sekundant declared.

When asked by The Day could the men's tortures be the judicial authorities' way of responding to their demand that they see the Ukrainian consul, Mrs. Kurdiukova said she was not sure, adding, however, that the Greek side had three Greek members of the crew released, so the Ukrainians carried the blame for the four tons of cocaine.

The arrested were living on donations from the populace, collected by Father Liubomyr, lawyer, and one of the reporters who had worked in the USSR, the women informed.

Last Thursday The Day was told by Serhiy Borodenko, deputy head of the Internal Affairs Ministry's press center, that, thanks to Ukrainian Consul Valery Hrebeniuk's intercession and demands from the crew, US judicial authorities ruled September 17 to release 11 Ukrainian seamen. The remaining crewmen will be kept in custody until October 19 when court hearings begin. “I should point out that we have not received any complaints about their stay in Houston prison,” Mr. Borodenko added.

Petro Savchyn, of the US Embassy's press service, informed The Day that the embassy is monitoring the situation in conjunction with the arrest of the Ukrainian citizens and contraband drugs. “We are most concerned about the tortures to which the Ukrainian seamen were allegedly subjected in US prison. We want to leave no stone unturned in this case, because this allegation may leave a negative impression of the US judicial system, and of America as a whole,” he pointed out.

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