QUITO (Ecuador) • A court in Ecuador has sentenced the crew of a Chinese ship caught fishing for endangered sharks in the Galapagos marine reserve to prison terms..
QUITO (Ecuador) • A court in Ecuador has sentenced the crew of a Chinese ship caught fishing for endangered sharks in the Galapagos marine reserve to prison terms.
The Chinese-flagged Fu Yuan Yu Leng 999 was caught within the protected zone on Aug 13 with 300 tonnes of fish – including some 6,000 sharks, mostly protected species such as the hammerhead and the bigeye thresher.
The court announced on Sunday, the third day of the trial, that it was sentencing the ship captain to four years’ jail for committing an environmental crime with aggravating circumstances.
The ship’s three top officers were sentenced to three years’ jail, while 16 other crew members were jailed for one year.
The court also ordered the crew to pay US$5.9 million (S$8 million) to the Galapagos National Park.
