A Turkish court today arrested the captain and three crew members of a sunken Georgian-flagged cargo vessel in which scores of illegal migrants are feared to have drowned.
At least eight people died as the Pati ran aground and split on a rocky outcrop on Turkey's Mediterranean coast on January 1. Up to 50 others are missing and feared dead.
State-run Anatolian news agency said the ship's Greek captain and the three crew were arrested by the court based in the southern resort of Antalya. Those arrested were sent to the jail after the hearing, it said.
Two Albanian crew members were set free pending the start of the trial. One Israeli was cleared of the accusations and released after his interrogation by local prosecutors, it said.
The passengers, most of them thought to have been Pakistanis and Iranians, had apparently been hoping to enter Greece.
Turkish rescuers saved 37 people from the ship.
Coastguard boats patrolled the coast around the site of the accident today though the official search and rescue operation was abandoned earlier this week.
Several ships wrecked off Turkey's Mediterranean and Aegean coasts in recent months have been carrying people from Asia, Africa and the Middle East trying to enter western Europe illegally. Most would-be immigrants are fined a small sum and deported. -Reuters