Panama finds 'missile cargo' in N Korea ship

Panama finds 'missile cargo' in N Korea ship
President says vessel enroute from Cuba to North Korea contained
undeclared arms, including apparent missile material.
Last Modified: 16 Jul 2013 07:40

Panama has detained a North Korean-flagged ship coming from Cuba with
undeclared weapons, including missile material, Ricardo Martinelli, the
country's president, has said.

Martinelli said late on Monday that the ship was targeted by drug
enforcement officials as it approached the Panama

Canal on the Atlantic coast of the country and was taken into port.

Javier Caraballo, Panama's top anti-drugs prosecutor, told local
television the ship was en route to North Korea.

The vessel's estimated 35-man crew also rioted when police stepped
aboard, according to Martinelli, who said the suspicious cargo was found
within a massive consignment of sugar.

"The world needs to sit up and take note: you cannot go around shipping
undeclared weapons of war through the Panama Canal," he told Radio
Panama listeners.

"We had suspected this ship, which was coming from Cuba and headed to
North Korea, might have drugs aboard so it was brought into port for
search and inspection.

"When we started to unload the shipment of sugar we located containers
that we believe to be sophisticated missile equipment, and that is not
allowed."

Crew held

Panamanian authorities said the ship was being held and that they had
detained the crew members.

"The captain has tried to commit suicide, and the crew rioted," the
president said of what happened moments after the raid.

Martinelli had earlier posted a photo on his Twitter account of what
appeared to be a green tubular object sitting inside a cargo container
or the ship's hold.

The president, who did not name the boat, said it was headed back to
North Korea when stopped and taken to Manzanillo, east of the Atlantic
opening of the Panama Canal, which is a major cargo distribution centre.

Cuba is the only one-party Communist regime in the Americas, and a rare
ally of also-isolated Pyongyang.

The vessel "aroused suspicion by the violent reaction of the captain and
the crew from Friday afternoon", Panama's Security Minister Jose Raul
Mulino said.

Caraballo said: "Until now we have not found drugs in the boat, we found
military equipment."

Nuclear weapons

North Korea defiantly carried out its third nuclear weapons test in
February and then threatened to attack the US, in language that was
shrill even by the standards of the reclusive state.

The North has for decades had a programme to develop missiles of all types.

Last December, it successfully launched a three-stage rocket which
placed a satellite in orbit.

Pyongyang said the operation was a peaceful scientific mission, but the
launch was widely condemned as a covert ballistic missile test banned
under UN resolutions.

It is unclear whether the North has the technology to build a nuclear
warhead for a missile.

Source: "Panama finds 'missile cargo' in N Korea ship - Americas - Al
Jazeera English" -
http://www.aljazeera.com/news/americas/2013/07/201371662915540217.html