Tripoli, 29 June:
The Foreign Ministry has said it is investigating the killing of a Tunisian fishing boat captain by a . . .[restrict]vessel belonging to the Libyan navy.
The incident, which took place last Wednesday, also resulted in the wounding of three other of the 18 crew on board, with the captain succumbing to his wounds on Thursday.
Ministry spokesman Mohammed Nafti told Associated Pres that an “urgent inquiry” had been launched to determine what happened and who was responsible.
There have been conflicting accounts as to whether the boat was in Libyan or international waters at the time.
Under the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS), territorial waters extend 12 miles beyond a nation’s coastline. In 2005, however, the Qaddafi regime unilaterally declared that waters extending 72 miles from the coast would be controlled by Libya for fishing purposes, a law the new government has not revoked.
Libya signed the UNCLOS in 1982, but has never ratified it. [/restrict]
