S73 HERMELIN

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Mutiny was a joke

The trial of six German naval crew members of the "Hermelin" being accused of mutiny by writing racist slurs on a superior officers legs after tying him to a table opened on Sep 24, 2013, with a confession - it had all been a revenge prank. A defendant in the trial of six first mates accused of attacking the ship's bosun said it had been meant as a joke. The 27-year-old bosun told a court in the north eastern coastal city of Rostock that the men had wanted to pay their victim back for an offensive remark. The first mates were accused of dragging their German-born superior officer of Thai descent out of his bunk late at night. They then used five-centimetre-wide tape to restrain the half-naked man to a table before scrawling “this is where the mongs live” in permanent marker on his lower legs. When an officer had asked during a medical examination where the officers and crew slept, the bosun replied: "Officers sleep in the cabins, the mongs sleep on deck." The defendant went on to explain that the alleged mutinous attack had been a spontaneous prank to get their own back on the bosun, who they normally got on well with. At the time questions were raised over whether the use of the word "mongs" suggested a racist motive to the attack, but the sailor said the word was often used on board the ship and had nothing to do with the bosun's ethnic origin.

Six crew members of Hermelin charged with mutiny

Six German sailors have been charged with mutiny over accusations they tied up their superior onboard the "Hermelin", in a first for the German navy, officials said on June 28, 2013. The six allegedly pulled the petty officer from his cabin, tied him with tape to a table and wrote “the retards live here” on his lower leg, according to the public prosecutor’s office in Rostock. The "Hermelin" was part of the UNIFIL mission in south Lebanon, while the boat was in the capital, Beirut, in February. The alleged victim had himself apparently used the term “retard” earlier to refer to non-officer crew members. They wanted to teach the petty officer a lesson, the public prosecutor said. A Defense Ministry spokesman said that as far as he was aware, it was the first time a charge of mutiny had been brought within the German navy. They have also been charged with aggravated battery and depriving someone of their personal freedom. On the mutiny charge alone, they face a jail term of between six months and five years. The petty officer was not seriously hurt.