Newsletter No. 307
News-Analysis
June 16, 2006

 

ISRAELI PROSECUTORS WANT TO QUESTION FIFTEEN JAPANESE IN THE ZIM ASIA CASE

Kyodo News is reporting that Israeli prosecutors have formally requested the Japanese government to send fifteen Japanese citizens to Israel in connection with the Zim Asia case. The report says that the prosecutors want to “intensively question” these Japanese over the question of how the accident occurred. The Japanese government has not yet responded to these Israeli requests.

The trial involves charges of negligent homicide against the ship’s second officer, Pilastro Zdrako, who was in charge of the Zim Asia at the time of the accident. Incidentally, it has been mentioned before that Mr. Zdrako is a Serbian national, but now it appears that he is a citizen of the world’s newest country, Montenegro.

One still hopes that some enterprising reporter somewhere finally tells us what the facts of this case really are, because what the media has thus far reported is contradictory and doesn’t make sense.

For our earlier reports on the Zim Asia case, see Shingetsu Newsletter Nos. 91, 99, 106, 148, and 222.