Maersk Dubai incident

The Maersk Dubai incident took place in 1996 aboard the Taiwanese-flagged 1,984-TEU container ship Maersk Dubai, which was on a long-term time charter to the A.P. Moller-Maersk Group. The vessel was owned, officered and crewed by the Yang Ming Marine Transport Corporation.

On 12 March 1996, two Romanian stowaways, Radu Danciu and Petre Sangeorzan, were discovered on the container ship Maersk Dubai and ordered overboard on a makeshift raft, approximately 70 kilometres off the coast of Gibraltar. On 18 May of the same year, while the vessel was en route to the Port of Halifax, Nova Scotia, another Romanian, Gheorghe Mihoc, was found hiding in a large cargo container, and was forced overboard at knife point by Captain Sheng Hsiu and four of his officers. A fourth stowaway, Nicolae Pasca, was discovered by Filipino crew member Rodolpho "Rudy" Miguel, and kept hidden until the ship arrived at Halifax, where eight Filipino crewmen (including Miguel) jumped ship and reported the incident to the authorities.

Upon arrival in Halifax the Maersk Dubai was stormed by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP), and Captain Hsiu and his Taiwanese officers were arrested and charged with first degree murder. The radio operator attempted to escape by jumping into the harbour, and was later arrested. Captain Hsiu attempted to deny access to the ship under international shipping laws.

A spokesman for Yang Ming Lines, owner of the Maersk Dubai, claimed the Filipino crew members had made false accusations in retaliation for a dispute over wages. The Filipino crewmen maintained that the stowaways had been thrown overboard in order to avoid paying a fine of US$5090 for each illegal immigrant brought into Canada. Craig Garson, QC, Duncan Beveridge, QC, Kevin Coady, David Bright, Warren Zimmer, Josh Arnold and Kevin Burke QC represented the Taiwanese crew members charged with murder who were involved in the extradition process. Lee Cohen, a Halifax immigration lawyer, acted on behalf of some of the Filipino crew members, while the Republic of China (Taiwan) retained the services of the Canadian criminal lawyer Edward Greenspan.

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Wikipedia