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The Turkish judiciary has launched investigations into the deployment of the Federal Armed Forces on a Turkish container ship. The Turkish state news agency Anadolu quoted the chief prosecutor in Ankara as saying the freighter had been searched against international law.
The inspection of the Turkish ship by the Bundeswehr took place last Sunday as part of the EU operation “Irini” and sparked outrage and protests from the government in Ankara. Turkey assessed the deployment of soldiers from Germany, a NATO partner, as illegal and accused the German government and the EU of unauthorized use of force.
The mission command announced, however, that there was sufficient reason to believe that the controlled ship could violate the UN arms embargo against Libya. The German soldiers proceeded in a very professional manner and inspected the ship in accordance with standard and internationally agreed NATO procedures.
According to SPIEGEL information, the military had much more specific evidence of illegal arms smuggling than was previously known. According to this, analysts from the EU mission »Irini«, which is supposed to prevent arms deliveries across the Mediterranean Sea to Libya, identified in satellite images of the ship’s previous stay in Misurata, Libya, that vehicles had been unloaded armored military.
During the recent port visit of the »Roseline A« in the Turkish port of Ambarli in November, surveillance footage revealed that suspicious goods had been brought back on board. The leadership of the “Irini” mission then decided to have the ship inspected.
