ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Sunday, July 7, 1996 TAG: 9607080098
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: B-3 EDITION: METRO
DATELINE: NORFOLK
SOURCE: Associated Press|
More than six months after arriving in Hampton Roads, 28 Indian and Pakistani seamen are still marooned in Virginia after their ship became mired in a legal wrangle that saw it sold in a court-ordered auction.
Their ship, the Liberian-registered freighter Pride of Donegal, was towed into port in mid-January with engine trouble. Since then the crew has been trapped, fighting to get their back pay so they can go home.
``We can deal with problems at sea. But this problem, with these people - I don't know,'' said Syed Shabbir Hussain Shah of Pakistan.
The men have not been paid in eight months. Some have been away from home for 13 months. They were virtual prisoners aboard the vessel for three months while it was anchored in the harbor and they had no way to get ashore.
The Peruvian bank that held the mortgage on the ship bought it at a court-ordered auction May 30 for $5.1 million. But five weeks later, the crew still hasn't been paid.
While attorneys for the crew and the bank tussle over arcane issues of maritime law, the crewmen are holed up in the Howard Johnson Hotel in downtown Norfolk at the bank's expense, four to a room with a meal allowance of $10 per man.
They say their families back home, deprived of income for months, are desperate.
``We are surviving, but we are concerned about our families, how they are surviving,'' said Syed Ijtaba Hussain Zeidi of Pakistan, the second engineer. ``I have already borrowed $17,000, and there is no hope of getting more.''
Shah said he has been borrowing money at 20 percent interest to feed his family. He said he too is unable to borrow more and may have to sell his house.
``Mentally, we are finished,'' Zeidi said. ``Why our struggle doesn't end, I don't know.''
The crew's complaints are set to be heard Wednesday by U.S. District Judge John A. MacKenzie.
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