Shipping Disaster
In April 1991, a Troodos-owned oil tanker suffered a disaster that resulted in the death of five Europeans and the disgorging up to 50,000 tonnes of crude oil into the sea - arguably the Mediterranean's worst-ever ecological disaster. The tanker, M/T Haven, was an elderly vessel, formerly named Amoco Haven, sister ship of the ill-starred Amoco Cadiz that had foundered in 1978. Stelios was accused of poor maintenance and charged, in Italy, with manslaughter and also intimidating and attempting to bribe witnesses. Stelios blamed the accident on an error by one of the surviving crew members.
Stelios and his father faced manslaughter charges for the deaths of their employees. The jury acquitted Stelios and the case was appealed. Subsequent demands against Stelios for compensation were dismissed by the courts.
Read more about this topic: Stelios Haji-Ioannou
Famous quotes containing the words shipping and/or disaster:
“I need not tell you of the inadequacy of the American shipping marine on the Pacific Coast.... For this reason it seems to me that there is no subject to which Congress can better devote its attention in the coming session than the passage of a bill which shall encourage our merchant marine in such a way as to establish American lines directly between New York and the eastern ports and South American ports, and both our Pacific Coast ports and the Orient and the Philippines.”
—William Howard Taft (1857–1930)
“From disaster good fortune comes, and in good fortune lurks disaster.”
—Chinese proverb.