Nicosia blamed for Monica
BEIRUT (AFP) – Lebanon said yesterday the 928 Kurdish immigrants on a cargo ship intercepted by Italian coastguard this week had boarded the vessel in Cyprus, not Lebanon. «Our legal and security service investigations prove that the ship intercepted on Monday by the Italian Navy had left Lebanese territorial waters without any passengers on board,» Foreign Minister Mahmud Hammud said. [Rome declared a state of emergency after the Monica’s passengers were brought ashore in Sicily on Monday.] «According to the information in our possession, the passengers embarked mostly at the port of Limassol,» on the southern coast of Cyprus, Hammud added. Italian judicial authorities claimed the rusting cargo ship stopped briefly in Cyprus before heading for Italy. But Cypriot Interior Minister Christodoulos Christodoulou said the ship arrived at the island «empty,» was repaired at a Cypriot port and changed its name before setting off.
