The West African country of Sierra Leone has deregistered nine ships which have been proven to belong to the Islamic Republic of Iran Shipping Lines (IRISL) and which are flying Sierra Leone flag.
The country said that it’s action was in line with the intention of the Western powers to curb Iran’s global oil shipping amid Teheran’s nuclear programme and that it had carried out relevant investigation into the ownership of the vessels.
The West African country of Sierra Leone has deregistered nine ships which have been proven to belong to the Islamic Republic of Iran Shipping Lines (IRISL) and which are flying Sierra Leone flag.
The country said that it’s action was in line with the intention of the Western powers to curb Iran’s global oil shipping amid Teheran’s nuclear programme and that it had carried out relevant investigation into the ownership of the vessels.
“The vessels were deleted as a result of the fact that the companies that registered the said vessels were actually subsidiaries owned and controlled by IRISL,” Reuters reports citing the Acting Executive Director of the Sierra Leone Maritime Administration Wurroh Jalloh.
According to him four of the nine vessels, namely Alva, Amin, Tour and Benita were deleted from the register last week, while the remaining five had been removed since the end of August.
This is not the first time Iran has attempted to mask the real ownership of its ships by reflagging them in order to circumvent the Western sanctions aimed at diminishing its oil exports.
One of the most recent examples of such practice was mid-August when the U.S. pressured Tanzania to de-registering 36 Iranian oil carriers which had taken Tanzanian flag so as to avoid sanctions imposed by the U.S. and the EU.
A report from an investigation conducted into the matter found that a shipping agent from Dubai, namely Philtex was behind the reflagging of the ships without the country’s knowledge.
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