Owners of arms-carrying ship stopped off Crete deny wrongdoing

A representative of the shipping firm that owns the Tanzania-flagged Andromeda, which was stopped on Sunday by the Greek coast guard, leading to the discovery of 29 containers full of explosives and detonators on board, said on Thursday that there was nothing illegal about the shipment.

The vessel was stopped off Crete as it was heading to Libya but captain Theodoros Rellos said that the ship should not have been seized and that its crew should not have been taken into custody. The eight crew members appeared before a prosecutor in Piraeus on Thursday.

Authorities claim sea safety laws had been breached and that the ship had dozens of problems. The EU also bans the sale of military equipment to Libya that might be used for internal repression.