CS DISCOVERY

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Two ship owners accused of illegal shipment of waste

From March 2025, two ship owners will have to appear at the Rendsburg District Court for illegal shipment of waste. The maximum sentence is five years in prison. The opening of the proceedings is likely to set a precedent for how to deal with similar cases, the dates of which are still pending. The trial goes back to an indictment filed by the Kiel public prosecutor's office in 2022. The opening of the proceedings has been postponed repeatedly. The ship owners are accused of having sent the "Westerhamm" to Alang in 2016 for scrapping. The removal of ships for scrap outside the scope of European legislation can be illegal if it violates certain regulations; this primarily concerns the so-called Basel Convention and the EU regulation on the shipment of waste, which prohibits the export of hazardous waste to non-OECD countries such as India. In 2023, the Hamburg public prosecutor's office charged three representatives of the Peter Döhle shipping company before the Hamburg regional court with illegal ship scrapping.This case concerned the scrapping of the "CS Discovery" at the beginning of 2017, which, according to the Hamburg public prosecutor's office, contained around 14,000 tons of hazardous waste. In the case of the "Westerhamm", the Kiel public prosecutor's office investigated not only the two Rendsburg shipowners, but also the Hamburg shipowners Jochen and Christoph Döhle and Döhle's managing director Gaby Bornheim, who is also president of the Association of German Shipowners (VDR). The investigators assumed that the three accused acted as a kind of broker in the scrapping of the "Westerhamm". The proceedings against Gaby Bornheim and Christoph Döhle have since been discontinued. Jochen Döhle, on the other hand, was charged in January 2024. In a separate case, he is accused of aiding and abetting the illegal disposal of waste. Döhle will also have to answer to the Rendsburg district court. It is not yet clear when the proceedings will begin.

Prosecutor charged defendants with illegal scrapping

For the first time, the Hamburg public prosecutor's office has charged three defendants with the illegal scrapping of a ship in India. More charges could follow. The last voyage of the "CS Discovery" started on Dec 15, 2016, in Gioa Tauro via the port of Mersinto Alang , where it finally arrived in early January 2017. However, Alang does not have a harbour, just a beach with more than a hundred shipyards where ships are dismantled, often under questionable working and environmental conditions. The “CS Discovery” was dismantled at one of these shipyards in spring 2017. The public prosecutors in Hamburg have been investigating numerous people involved for years about violations of the Waste Shipment Act, which states that waste must be disposed of in an environmentally friendly manner in appropriate facilities, and anyone who fails to do so is committing a criminal offense. According to the Hamburg public prosecutor's office, the "CS Discovery" had contained around 14,000 tons of hazardous waste at the time of sale, including almost 500 kg of lead accumulators, 970 tons of mineral oil waste and 13,000 tons of waste made from metals and metal alloys.The “CS Discovery” should have been dismantled in an environmentally friendly manner. But legally this could only have been done at certain shipyards in the EU or Turkey. But according to the public prosecutor's office, the accused decided to take a different path by selling the ship to a so-called “cash buyer,” a company, in this case based in Hong Kong, that acted as an intermediary between the ship owner and the ship-breaking yard. They are said to have been aware that the "CS Discovery" was ultimately to be scrapped in India under conditions that did not meet the usual environmental standards. The third accused is said to have organized the sale of the container ship and ensured that it comes to India. He also instructed the captain of the "CS Discovery" to drive the ship onto the beach in Alang so that it can be dismantled there. The public prosecutor also mentioned the price of 4.7 million US dollarsthat the Hamburg shipping company achieved: If the ship had been properly scrapped, the owners would have received significantly less money for it, because environmentally friendly recycling costs money, which is deducted from the purchase price. The question now is whether the court will allow the prosecution. The affected Hamburg shipping company Peter Döhle did not want to comment on the case. The “Discovery” case is the first to be brought to trial in Hamburg. In Schleswig-Holstein, charges in a similar case were admitted 1,5 years ago. Since then, those involved have been waiting for the first court date to be set. It is still uncertain how many other similar investigations will result in charges.

On the beach...

..in Alang: https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10156214045697588&set=g.6884293942&type=1&theater