Is there a joint UK-US conspiracy to seize the Adrian Daria?
The decision by the United States Justice Department to issue a warrant for the seizure of the Iranian oil tanker, Adrian Daria, (formerly Grace 1), has created fresh uncertainty about the fate of the vessel.
The US warrant comes on the heels of a decision by the Gibraltar Supreme Court to order the release of the tanker. Gibraltar’s Chief Justice, Anthony Dudley, denied he had received a “formal” application for the vessel’s continuing detention from the US authorities.
This created the impression that the Gibraltar authorities, at the behest of UK officials, had chosen to ignore the US request.
Now, it would appear, that London and Washington are in cahoots to detain the tanker a second time, possibly by the US navy in the Mediterranean Sea.
The warrant, issued by a US federal court in Washington on August 16th, is addressed to the “United States Marshals Service and/or any other duly authorized law enforcement officer”.
As PressTV reported earlier, US Justice Department officials made a spectacular error in the warrant by getting their dates wrong. Instead of inputting 16 August they had written 16 November, as the date of the warrant.
Informed observers anticipate that the US navy will attempt to seize the Adrian Daria as soon as it sets sail from Gibraltar.
The Iranian Foreign Minister, Mohammad Javad Zarif, alluded to this plan in a tweet on August 15th, whereby he accused the US of attempting to “steal our property on the high seas”.
At the beginning of the drama on July 4th, Spain’s acting Foreign Minister, Josep Borrell, dramatically contradicted the British narrative centred on the enforcement of EU sanctions against Syria, by claiming that the UK action had been prompted by a US “request”.
Now it would appear that the US has not only instigated this drama but that it has manipulated its outcome as well.
And all along London was playing second fiddle to Washington.
Rupert Cansell, Investigative Journalist
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