A Maltese chartering company owner and four employees have been acquitted of supplying vessels for the evacuation of mercenaries from Libya in breach of EU sanctions. The boats were leased on the pretext that they were going to be used to evacuate 'geological survey workers' from Libya in 2019. The men had been released from arrest by police two days after the Maltese company that leased them the two RHIBs, Sovereign Charters, accepted to pay a €15,000 fine for immigration irregularities. Lodge claimed that Opus Capital Headquarters had informed him that they would be sending two RHIBs that had been leased from Sovereign Charters Ltd. The prosecution insisted that as the defendants had not sought the authorisation of the Sanctions Monitoring Board before sending the RHIBs to Libya, this constituted a breach of EU sanctions on Libya.

Source: Libya Today October 26, 2022 09:39 UTC