Pubdate: Wed, 08 Mar 2000 Source: Tampa Tribune (FL) Copyright: 2000, The Tribune Co. Contact: http://www.tampatrib.com/ Forum: http://tampabayonline.net/interact/welcome.htm Author: Sarah Huntley of the Tribune U.S. CALLED 'PIRATES' IN COCAINE CASE TAMPA - Seven crewmen arrested after their ship and its cargo were seized plead not guilty in federal court. Seven sailors arrested off the coast of Ecuador aboard a trawler allegedly carrying almost 5 tons of cocaine and brought in irons to St. Petersburg feel like victims of "piracy on the high seas," their attorneys said Tuesday. The lawyers told a federal magistrate the men are all simple fishermen who knew nothing about their ship's hidden cargo - worth tens of millions of dollars. The captain, Hemino Ruiz Ibardo, is a 51-year-old Colombian who had no formal schooling. When Coast Guard officials boarded his trawler in the Pacific Ocean last month, he told them his crew had lost its 800 foot fishing line at sea. "He is a fisherman by trade," said Assistant Federal Public Defender Anthony Martinez. "That's all he was doing on that vessel the day in question." Daniel Castillo, one of six private lawyers appointed to the case Tuesday, said crewman Jose Learcio Lopez told him he "felt like it was a bunch of pirates raiding his boat." Now Ibardo, Lopez and their shipmates are in the United States, embroiled in a foreign legal system in a case heralded as one of the state's largest maritime cocaine busts ever. Federal prosecutors announced the seizure Monday, saying the cocaine was in a concrete vault in the ship's hold. Its estimated wholesale value is $73 million. The seven men were charged in a federal indictment with conspiracy and possession with intent to distribute more than 5 kilograms of cocaine while aboard a vessel in waters subject to U.S. jurisdiction. The offenses carry maximum penalties of life in prison and $4 million in fines. After an hourlong hearing Tuesday, U.S. Magistrate Mary Scriven ordered the defendants held without bail until trial. All seven defendants pleaded not guilty. Prosecutors have released few details about the seizure, saying it involves an ongoing investigation. Assistant U.S. Attorney Joseph Ruddy told Scriven the trawler had no fishing gear and was sailing at night without lights. The case is expected to raise thorny and perhaps precedent-setting legal questions. Luz Nagle, a former lawyer and judge in Colombia who now teaches at Stetson University College of Law in Gulfport said drug interdiction in open waters is an evolving process defined by treaties and U.N. resolutions. The ship in this case, the Rebelde, was sailing under a Colombian flag and was stopped about 1,300 miles from land, according to testimony Tuesday. Under those circumstances, Nagle said, the Coast Guard would have been required to seek Colombia's permission before boarding. The two governments reached an agreement in 1997 ending a six-year stalemate during which Colombia refused to allow U.S. officials to board its citizens' vessels. The agreement does not require U.S. officials to give Colombia investigative details in advance. Nor does it call for written approval. "If there is a silence of three hours, it is understood that permission is granted," Nagle said. It was unclear Tuesday whether approval was sought in this case. Prosecutors deemed to comment, but the captain's attorney said the Coast Guard contacted Colombia before breaking into the vault hiding the cocaine. Attorneys for the defendants are also questioning the way in which their clients were held for the 20 days it took to tow the trawler to St. Petersburg. Roland Hermida, who is representing crewman and cook Gustavo Montano Rivas, said the men were shackled together in a hallway and later on an exposed deck, "like in days gone by." They were fed only bread and water at first and not told for two or three days what charges they faced, Hermida said. "My client had no intention of ever coming to this country. These individuals were in essence hijacked in the middle of the ocean." But Nagle said typically recognized constitutional rights do not apply in international waters. "The application of the U.S. Constitution stops at the border," she said, even if the defendants were in military custody. "They [constitutional rights] wouldn't have kicked in until they hit U.S. seas." - --- MAP posted-by: Doc-Hawk