Two men have appeared in a UK court on charges of seizing and endangering the safety of a product tanker during a hijacking incident off the UK coast in October.
John Okorie, 25, and Sunday Sylvester, 22, appeared at West Hampshire Magistrates Court, Southampton, without entering a plea. They are due to appear again in court on 29 January.
The incident involved Navios Maritime Acquisition's 75,000-dwt Nave Andromeda (built 2011), which was hijacked shortly near the Isle of Wight after arriving in the UK from Nigeria.
The hijackers gained control of the ship but, after a 10-hour standoff, the situation was resolved when the UK special forces dramatically regained control in just nine minutes.
There were seven stowaways onboard the vessel at the time of the hijacking. They had boarded the vessel at Lagos.
None of the 22 crew onboard were harmed during the incident. Navios Tanker Management, the ship's manager, praised the response of the crew. In a statement issued at the time, the company said the ship’s master had acted with “exemplary response and calmness”. It praised the crew for their “fortitude in a difficult situation”.
The five other men who were on board at the time of the incident remain on police bail.
There was a similar hijacking incident which was tried in the UK criminal courts involving the hijacking of a the 5,700-lane-metre con-ro Grande Tema (built 2014) in the Thames Estuary in December 2018.
The court handed out prison sentences of 16 months to four men involved in the Grande Tema incident.
The men were cleared of hijacking but were found guilty of affray and making threats to kill.
