Panama stops North Korean ship, says missile material found

PANAMA CITY, Panama – Panama’s president said Monday, July 15, that a North Korean ship captain tried to kill himself after the vessel was stopped en route from Cuba and found to have suspected missile material on board.

Outlining a dramatic sequence of events, President Ricardo Martinelli said the ship was targeted by drug enforcement officials as it approached the Panama Canal and was taken into port, but a search revealed a cargo of far greater concern.

The vessel’s estimated 35-man crew also rioted when police stepped aboard, according to Martinelli, who said the suspicious cargo was found within a massive consignment of sugar.

“The world needs to sit up and take note: you cannot go around shipping undeclared weapons of war through the Panama Canal,” he told Radio Panama listeners.

“We had suspected this ship, which was coming from Cuba and headed to North Korea, might have drugs aboard so it was brought into port for search and inspection,” on the Atlantic coast of the country.

“When we started to unload the shipment of sugar we located containers that we believe to be sophisticated missile equipment, and that is not allowed,” Martinelli said.

Panamá capturo barco de bandera Norcoreana proveniente de cuba con cargamento bélico no declarado pic.twitter.com/MdWGfbXvVJ

— Ricardo Martinelli (@rmartinelli) July 16, 2013

Material venia escondido en contenedores bajo un cargamento de azucar pic.twitter.com/x1OqI7SOhX

— Ricardo Martinelli (@rmartinelli) July 16, 2013

The ship is being held and the crew are in custody.

“The captain has tried to commit suicide, and the crew rioted” during the operation, the president said.

Martinelli, who did not name the boat, said it was headed back to North Korea when stopped and taken to Manzanillo, east of the Atlantic opening of the Panama Canal, which is a major cargo distribution centre.

Cuba is the only one-party Communist regime in the Americas, and a rare ally of also-isolated Pyongyang.

The vessel “aroused suspicion by the violent reaction of the captain and the crew from Friday afternoon”, Panama’s Security Minister Jose Raul Mulino told the radio station.

And Javier Caraballo, an anti-drugs enforcement official, said: “Until now we have not found drugs in the boat, we found military equipment.”

North Korea defiantly carried out its third nuclear weapons test in February and then threatened to attack the United States, in language that was shrill even by the standards of the reclusive state.

The North has for decades had a program to develop missiles of all types. Last December it successfully launched a three-stage rocket which placed a satellite in orbit.

Pyongyang said the operation was a peaceful scientific mission, but the launch was widely condemned as a covert ballistic missile test banned under United Nations resolutions.

It is unclear whether the North has the technology to build a nuclear warhead for a missile. – Rappler.com