Trabalza embarks Sicilian trawler and fends off police from seizing vessel
Karl Stagno-Navarra
The Italian ambassador Paolo Andrea Trabalza planted himself physically aboard an impounded fishing trawler this week, to prevent police from seizing the vessel and towing it to Haywharf.
The incident was provoked by the arrest of Sicilian fisherman Rosolino Paternostro, who is facing charges of illegally fishing in Maltese territorial waters. Paternostro, 48 from Porto Palo, was denied bail and remanded in custody by Magistrate Lawrence Quintano, and now faces a staggering €116,000 fine for just some €350 worth of fish that was discovered aboard his boat, the Maria Salvatrice.
The boat was intercepted on Hurd’s Bank last Monday, some 19 miles southeast of Malta.
News of the seizure triggered an immediate reaction by the Italian authorities, which instructed Trabalza to take a firm stand in Paternostro’s and his crew’s defence.
MaltaToday can confirm that two hours after the Court ordered the police to escort the fisherman to prison, a police officer informed the ambassador that the remaining three members of the crew on board the Maria Salvatrice, berthed under police escort at Ta’ Liesse in Valletta, had to disembark immediately to find alternative accommodation as the boat was going to be seized and taken to Haywharf.
Trabalza immediately left his office in Floriana and boarded the Maria Salvatrice to protect the crew and insisted with the police that he will not move.
“Arrest me,” he defiantly told police who arrived shortly after. When Trabalza informed them that he was the Italian ambassador, the police had to back off.
The police and a patrol boat that went to tow the trawler withdrew from the area, and Justice and Home Affairs minister Carm Mifsud Bonnici personally called the ambassador to inform him that the issue was a “misunderstanding” and that the crew could stay aboard the Maria Salvatrice.
Paternostro is being defended in court by Labour MP José Herrera.
The Maltese fishing community is up in arms over the “excessive and unreasonable” action taken by the authorities against the Sicilian fisherman, who was intercepted by an army patrol boat while allegedly fishing illegally in Maltese waters.
While Malta enjoys an “exclusive” fishing zone that extends to 25 miles around its coast, the fishing community said that Maltese and Italian fishermen frequently cross over into each other’s waters and cooperate with each other, guaranteeing their own livelihoods.
Ray Bugeja, secretary of the National Fishing Cooperative, expressed disbelief at the way the authorities treated Paternostro, who until yesterday was spending his fourth day at Corradino prison, awaiting another appearance in Court on July 10, when the prosecution will present its evidence.
Bugeja said the arrested fisherman is known amongst the Maltese fishing community to be one of the most cooperative, not only in the Sicilian ports, but also out at sea.
“With the tough and irrational attitude taken against this poor fisherman, we have ruined relations between two fishing communities,” Bugeja said.
He added that many local fishermen were afraid of the repercussions they could probably face out at sea, when they meet Italian coastguard or navy boats.
“I can tell you that if only the Italians had to adopt the same attitude that the Maltese have taken, half the Maltese fishing community would be in Italian jails,” he said.
He explained that historical ties between the two communities often meant that trawlers crossed into each other’s territorial waters to mostly trade or fish with each other.
“This action was so irrational and damaging to us,” Ray Bugeja said.
As the Italian media continued to lambaste Malta for the arrest of the trawler’s captain, the issue is also high on the Italian political agenda, with the Foreign Minister Franco Frattini and his undersecretary Vincenzo Scotti keeping themselves informed on all developments in the case.
Porto Palo’s mayor Michele Taccone is calling for the defence minister Ignazio La Russa to intervene on the matter by instructing the navy to protect Italian trawlers at sea, while the Italian national fishing cooperative Marisud president Gianpaolo Buonfiglio has defined the situation with Malta as “intolerable”.
Buonfiglio stressed that in such tight areas such as the Sicilian channel, one cannot expect to be so rigorous on territorial lines, and insisted that it is “unacceptable” that Malta, an EU member state, was adopting such tactics.
The fisherman’s case is expected to take a further twist on Monday as his legal team is expected to insist on the irrationality of the measures taken against their client, who insists that he was only passing through Maltese territorial waters, and the fish aboard was actually fished before.
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Paternostro, 48 from Porto Palo, was denied bail and remanded in custody by Magistrate Lawrence Quintano, and now faces a staggering €116,000 fine for just some €350 worth of fish that was discovered aboard his boat, the Maria Salvatrice.
