[CPProt.net] Scuba diving shipwreck looters to be prosecuted in Malta

[MSN CPPnet (Ton Cremers)]

Scuba diving shipwreck looters to be prosecuted in Malta
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by KARL SCHEMBRI

MALTA (11 Sep 2005) -- Lying deep underwater off St Thomas Bay, the wreck SS
Polynésien is considered "Malta's best kept secret" according to
international wreck diving experts. But what has been happening upon the
slick French ship also known as "the little Titanic" for the last decade
amounts to omertà – criminal reticence.

Since it was sunk by a UC22 U-boat on 10 August 1918 while sailing in convoy
towards Malta, the Polynésien has hidden priceless treasures for almost one
hundred years, buried up to 70 metres under the sea, where only experienced
scuba divers can reach.

The wreck is no site for amateurs. According to sources in the diving
circles, it takes around an hour and a half of decompression, staggered on
the way back up to the surface, for around 20 minutes of so-called technical
deep diving at those depths.

It takes much more than 20 minutes to explore the entire 157-metre ship, and
for the expert divers to reach the thousands of serving platters, ceiling
fans and other artefacts inside.

And among these diving experts, groups of ruthless robbers have been looting
these artefacts and others even older found in diverse diving sites around
Malta, on paper protected by the Cultural Heritage Act as national treasures
but effectively vulnerable to human predators armed with goggles and
cylinders.

The rampant deep underwater robbery is believed to have been going on
totally undeterred for the last six years, according to diving instructors
who insisted on remaining anonymous. Individual divers, mostly unaware of
the crime they are committing, just feel "they have to take a souvenir" back
with them after almost risking their lives to reach the wreck.

Others, in organised groups, have systematically despoiled the ship of her
beautiful, and profitable, treasures.

Now, tipped by sources in the diving circles, the police have investigated
some of the most notorious of technical divers on the islands, Maltese and
foreigners, and the findings are expected to lead to the first arraignments
ever in court of underwater criminal rings.

"It's about time something is done about it," an experienced diver said.
"I'm happy the police is clamping down on this rampant illegal activity.
It's disgusting how some divers are robbing everything there is under the
sea."

The world's biggest museum lies under the sea, cultural heritage experts
say, but the possibility of the illicit international trading of a great
part of this heritage makes its full recovery next to impossible. Also, with
the police force's resources, it is next to impossible to monitor diving
sites.

Just the Polynésien is known to have sunk with ceramic jars, plates and cups
made by Menun of France, dated 1900 on their inscriptions, together with
other splendid ceramics by the prestigious Limoges factory.

The holds of the ship were known to contain a cargo of boots, car tires,
fire bricks, brass beds, sealed champagne and wine bottles and a number of
glass bottles dated 1900 from the Anglo-Egyptian Aerated Water Co. of Port
Said – all vied-for collectibles on the clandestine antiques global market.

The ship is testimony to Malta's vital role during World War One, when the
Polynésien was used by the French Navy as an armed troop transport vessel
after more than 20 years of civilian service accommodating 172 first, 71
second and 109 third and 234 steerage-class passengers at one go.

Her last, fatal movements on a hot August morning of 1918, are recorded in a
Royal Navy inquiry, which found that a clearly negligent chief of staff
posted here failed to act on early warning signs given to him by a Royal
Navy officer stationed in Malta, who heard 'suspicious engine sounds'
through the Delimara listening station.

Just as she was heading inshore, an enemy submarine fired its torpedoes
towards the Polynésien, slipping through undetected as the ship started
sinking.

All the crew escaped from the sinking ship unharmed, with the captain, in
true naval tradition, boarding off the little Titanic as the last man.

Writing on the specialist journal, SportDiver in February 2004, wreck expert
Ned Middleton revealed the secrets of the Polynésien for the first time on
the British press, possibly exposing it even further to unscrupulous
underwater treasure hunters from around the world.

Middleton wrote the ship "is such an outstanding wreck, I am at a loss to
know why I have not read about her existence time and again long before now.
Maybe I missed something, but I have been unable to find anything published
about this shipwreck at all."

After just one single dive "on this most incredible vessel", it was
immediately clear to Middleton "that this is one of the world's top wreck
dives. Oh yes, I mean it, she is easily that – and yet divers seem oblivious
to her existence".

Not the stealing ones, it seems. According to the Cultural Heritage Act,
"the right of access to, and benefit from, the cultural heritage does not
belong merely to the present generation. Every generation shall have the
duty to protect this heritage and to make it accessible for future
generations and for all mankind".

But for a generation of ruffian divers, this is just an adventurous,
lucrative business.

SOURCE - Malta Today