Maersk Dubai incident

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The Maersk Dubai incident took place aboad the Taiwanese freighter Maersk Dubai of the A.P. Moller-Maersk Group in 1996.

[edit] Events

In May 1996, two Romanian stowaways were found on board and thrown into the sea with a makeshift raft of oil drums and wood – no protection against the North Atlantic – by Taiwanese officers. When Rodolfo "Rudy" Miguel — a Filipino crewman — discovered a third stowaway on board, he hid him. Upon arrival in Halifax, Canada, Miguel and other Filipinos brought the stowaway to safety and alerted the RCMP to the action of the ship's officers.

The officers could not be extradited to Romania as the treaty between Canada and Romania only provided for extradition based on crimes committed in the territory of the other nation. They could not be extradited to Taiwan as Canada does not recognize the state of Taiwan. Eventually the officers were allowed to leave Canada as a successful prosecution was impossible.

The incident was one of the main themes of progressive metal band Savatage's concept album The Wake of Magellan. A partially fictionalized version of the incident was the plot of the book The Stowaway by Robert Hough.

The surviving stowaway is now living in the United States.

[edit] Ship

The MV Maersk Dubai was built in 1983 in China. After the incident it became the Med Taichung, and now operates as the YM Fortune under Yang Ming Lines.