35 crew men of US ship challenge lower court order

The 35 crew members of US company-owned ship MV Seaman Guard Ohio, who were sentenced to five years rigorous imprisonment by a lower court on charges of illegally possessing weapons and entering Indian waters in an unauthorized manner, today moved the Madras High court bench here challenging the order.
In their appeal, they submitted they were involved in preventing piracy in Indian Ocean and carried the arms only for that purpose.
They claimed that Indian Arms Act would not apply to them. Cases could not be registered against them under Arms Act nor could they be convicted under the Act, they said.

Besides 25 of them were ex-army men and they would not cause any threat to the security of India, they said.
They argued that the trial court had erred in convicting them on the ground that their act was a threat to the security of the country. They said they could not renew their permit of the ship as it was under the control of the 'Q' Branch police of Tamil Nadu.
The Indian government should have taken action to renew the permit of the ship. There were several flaws in the trial court judgment, they claimed and prayed that it be set aside and they be released.

Besides sentencing them to five years RI, Tuticorin district Sessions Court Judge Rajasekhar had on January 11 also imposed a fine of Rs 3,000 each on the crew members comprising 12 Indians, three Ukranians, six British and 14 Estonian nationals.

The crew, arrested on October 18, 2013 after their ship was intercepted by Indian Coast Guard off Tuticorin port, had been granted conditional bail by the Madurai Bench of the Madras High Court in March, 2014.
The crew were arrested after the Coast Guard personnel found the ship carrying arms illegally in Indian waters off Tuticorin, a charge denied by the vessel authorities.

They faced charges under Arms Act and Essential Commodities Act which was invoked as the ship had allegedly bought diesel from a local agent in violation of law.
US firm AdvanFort International, which owns the ship, had been maintaining that the vessel was involved in anti-piracy operations and had not strayed into Indian waters.