JAKARTA: Indonesian authorities said on Friday that firearms and ammunition have been found on an Iranian supertanker, one of the two vessels seized in the country’s waters over a suspected illegal oil transfer last month.
The Iranian-flagged MT Horse and the Panamanian-flagged MT Freya were impounded by the Maritime Security Agency (Bakamla) in waters bordering the South China Sea off Pontianak, West Kalimantan province, on Jan. 24, over suspicions of illegal fuel transfer between ships, polluting the water with oil, violation of the right of innocent passage, turning off their identification systems, illegal anchorage, and not flying their national flags.
On Friday, authorities said they had also found weapons on the Iranian tanker. “Investigators found a sniper rifle, three assault rifles, two pistols, and ammunition on the Iranian-flagged tanker MT Horse,” Bakamla spokesperson Col. Wisnu Pramandita told Arab News.
Earlier on Friday, Coordinating Minister for Political and Security Affairs Mahfud MD said during a joint press conference with Bakamla that all other suspicions had also been confirmed.
“We concluded they deliberately did all those violations, and they were caught doing them in tandem,” he said, as Bakamla chief Vice Admiral Aan Kurnia told reporters that the two tankers had trespassed 25 nautical miles into Indonesia’s territorial waters when the agency caught them.
The tankers were impounded after a patrol ship detected an idle signal indicating that the automatic identification system of the vessels was turned off. When Bakamala personnel arrived at the location they caught the tankers conducting a ship-to-ship fuel transfer from MT Horse to MT Freya, with their hulls covered to conceal their identities.
The vessels have been anchored at Bakamla’s base in Batam, Riau Islands province near Singapore, since their seizure.
Investigators are still questioning 25 crew from the MT Horse and 36 Chinese crew members of the MT Freya, which is managed by a Shanghai-based company.
Deputy Coordinating Minister for Political and Security Affairs Sugeng Purnomo said the inter-departmental task force investigating the case will soon press charges against the suspects. 
In the wake of the incident, Transport Minister Budi Karya Sumadi has ordered stricter law enforcement in the country’s waters, ministry spokesperson Adita Irawati told Arab News.
“We are committed to enforcing the law on Indonesia’s territorial waters, in accordance also with the international law as enforced by the International Maritime Organization,” Irawati said.

ROME: An Italian MEP known as the “doctor of migrants” has blamed EU inaction for the situation in the Mediterranean at a speech in the city of Florence. 
Pietro Bartolo, who sits in the European Parliament for the Solidarity Democracy party, said: “I believe that Europe has the biggest responsibility for what is still happening in the Mediterranean and in Libya.
“When I speak of Europe, I am of course talking about member states, but I’m also talking about the European Commission in Brussels,” he said. “It doesn’t do what it should do; that is, telling (members) to respect accords — human rights that are systematically violated across Europe — I have to say, including by (Italy).”
Bartolo is known for spending his weekends at his home on the tiny Italian island of Lampedusa, which is closer to the coast of North Africa than to the Italian mainland, and which has become a prominent landing site for migrants and refugees traveling to Europe.
As well as serving as an MEP in Brussels, Bartolo is also the director of Lampedusa’s health services, and he oversees the provision of first aid and other medical services to the migrants who land there.
Bartolo added that Europe’s policies on migrants were, in his opinion, “a failure,” and that the migratory phenomenon “cannot be faced like we have faced it so far, which has taken us all to a failure.
“Facts clearly certify that the so-called ‘Dublin 3’ Agreement has been a failure so far. It is a pact that talks about repatriations, along with strengthening the EU borders, creating a European fortress. This isn’t good,” he said. “That pact talks about pre-screening, it talks about loading more and more burden on the shoulders of countries of first entrance and first landing, including Greece, Italy, Malta, Cyprus, Spain, and now I’d also say Croatia.
“We therefore have to ensure that the solidarity which is talked about in article 80 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the EU is put in place,” he added.
Bartolo called on politicians “at every level” to find solutions to the migratory issue. “Politicians must decide in Europe whether to close or open doors, on whether to let these people die in the middle of the Mediterranean or in the detention camps on Libya, or save them.
“It is up to politicians to decide whether to pay Libya or Turkey to block migrants or not. The point is that we need answers and we need them soon. As the phenomenon of migration was born with man, it will always exist, no one can stop it,” he added. “It must be dealt with differently: Not with barbed wire and walls. We need to give the right answers, based on solidarity, respect for human rights and for the right to life.”