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Wednesday July 19 10:07 PM
ET
Korean ship not fit for voyage to Canada, captain
testifies
VICTORIA (CP) - A Korean sea captain protested orders to sail his cargo ship to Canada, saying it wouldn't make the trip, but human smugglers threatened to kill him and his crew, the captain testified.
Capt. Chong-Un Kim told a B.C. Supreme Court jury Wednesday he couldn't believe his orders to cross the Pacific Ocean with a boatload of Chinese migrants. But he said his concerns about the seaworthiness of his 32-metre vessel were met with death threats.
Kim painted a tale of high-seas piracy where he and his crew lived under constant surveillance and were forced to call the smugglers King.
"When I was told to go to Canada, I thought that was nonsense," said Kim, whose comments are being translated into English by an interpreter.
"It made no sense. I told them that while we were sailing and if we were faced with wind or storm all of us could die."
He said his concerns about the voyage were not greeted warmly by the head King on board, known as E.P.
"E.P. was very furious and jumping up and down," Kim said. "He said that if I ever say anything like that he was going to kill us and throw us out into the water. He told me to think of my family."
Kim said there were four Kings and one interpreter on board his ship.
Police and Immigration Canada officials have called people involved with human smuggling snakeheads and enforcers.
Kim said the ship had been drifting in the South Seas about 300 kilometres off the coast of Samoa when the orders came to set sail for Canada.
The ship drifted off Samoa for about 10 days, but at one point Kim said he and his crew were locked in a cabin for several hours when another vessel appeared off the horizon.
The Kings made daily satellite telephone contact to people in China who appeared to be tracking the course of the ship, Kim said.
He said he never had a chance to make a distress call.
"If we could have made a call for help, we would have done it."
Kim and his eight crew members are charged with attempting to smuggle Chinese migrants into Canada.
The trial is slated to make legal history in British Columbia because Justice Ronald MacKinnon has allowed cameras in the courtroom to record final arguments.
The Crown alleges Kim and his crew knowingly took 131 Chinese migrants from Fujian province and dropped them off on a rocky shore on the southern tip of British Columbia's Queen Charlotte Islands last August.
Kim's ship was one of four vessels intercepted last summer attempting to smuggle about 600 Chinese migrants into Canada.
Kim testified his voyage began in China when he was offered a job transporting fish in the East China Sea.
Shortly after leaving port in June 1999, men armed with knives and pipes boarded the ship, he said.
"I was just thinking I was being hijacked by pirates that I had only heard about," Kim said. "At that time I was thinking they were going to kill us."
Kim said he was taken off the ship and introduced to two men, Mr. Son and Mr. Kim, whom he described as bosses.
When he returned to his ship, it was loaded with people speaking a language he could not understand, he said. © The Canadian Press, 2000
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