Four youth who sneaked into Europe on ship remanded
Four Sri Lankan youth who were caught by the captain of a ship at the Suez Canal guard post in Egypt after they had sneaked on to an American ship anchored at the Colombo Port were remanded till April 18 by the Galle Acting Magistrate Premaratne
Thiranagama yesterday. The four youth had hidden on a ship that arrived to take a load of garments made in Sri Lanka to Europe and were arrested on April 10 and sent back to Sri Lanka on another ship belonging to the same shipping company. On arrival they had been handed over to officials of the Galle port Emigration and Immigration department who produced them before the Galle Magistrate who remanded them till April 18.
These four Sri Lankan youths, aged 25, 31, 32 and 32, are residents of Jaffna and Mullaitivu.
They had sneaked into the ship called MVC MACGM Panama belonging to the United States of America which had arrived in Colombo on March 24.This ship has left Colombo the next day (March 25) on its journey to Europe.
When the American ship had entered the Suez Canal in Egypt, unknown to the captain and the other crew members of the ship they had found these four youth inside the vessel.
Subsequent to informing the parent shipping company about the discovery of the stowaways and according to their instructions, these four persons had been handed over to the ship MV Jackson Bay which was heading towards Sri Lanka on March 28.
They had kept these four Sri Lankan youths in a special cell and brought them to the beach near the Galle port under tight security. Subsequent to informing officials of the Galle Port Immigration and Emigration Department, they, along with a group of Sri Lanka Navy, Sri Lanka Police and Sri Lanka Port Authority officials, on the evening of April 10, had gone to the ship Jackson Bay which was travelling on international seas near the Galle Port in a special vessel and taken the four Tamil stowaway youths into custody.
Later, steps had been taken to hand over these youths to the Galle Port Police and under the Immigration Act of Sri Lanka, these youths were to be handed over to the Colombo Criminal Investigation Department officials yesterday (11). Legal action will be taken not only against them but also against the people who aided and abetted them.
An Immigration and Emigration Department senior officer said that this incident is a unique incident in the history of the Immigration Department’s history.
This arrest and investigations had been carried out on the instructions of Immigration and Emigration Controller General Harsha Ilukpitiya, under the supervision of Jayantha Ratnayake, Deputy Controller (Port) by officers of the Immigration and Emigration Department, A.K. Dahanayake, Roshan Kumara, Y.M.M. Yasar, L.C.Siriwardena, V.H.L.R. Thilakaratne, T.R. Danthanarayana, W.K.V.A. Saradha, T.P.C.I. Sampath and W. Dulith Sampath.