PANORAMA EXCLUSIVE: Victim of ‘horrendous ordeal’ tells the full ‘frightening’ story

PANORAMA EXCLUSIVE: Victim of ‘horrendous ordeal’ tells the full ‘frightening’ story In an exclusive interview with Panorama, one of the two victims involved in the serious incident on Saturday morning in British Gibraltar Territorial Waters, the owner of the leisure boat, has explained in detail what exactly happened when they were out fishing and were agressively and illegally approached by a Guardia Civil vessel. This person has requested that his name not be made public in this report, a request that we fully understand and have complied with. In his own words the following are how events unfolded which again led last Saturday morning to yet another serious international incident with the Guardia Civil and again in BGTW: IN MY OWN WORDS I went out with a friend early on Saturday morning on board my pleasure boat to hopefully do some fishing. I was steering the boat, we headed towards the lighthouse and at some point mid-morning I saw from a distance the ‘Guardia Civil Rio Cedena M22 Launch ’ heading towards us from the direction of ‘Punta Carnero’. At the time we were not fishing at all, we were waiting to detect some fish activity. In fact I immediately checked and confirmed our position and although at the time we were at a distance from land, the boat’s position was well within 3 miles and in BGTW. This was confirmed when checking my GPS system, where the boat’s tracking movements are recorded. The Guardia Civil vessel approached my boat and there were 5 GC officers on board. They came up close and one of the officers asked for the Spanish fishing licence. I told them that I was in BGTW and they had no competence and I refused to show them any documents. I was then instructed to switch off the engines to the boat, as they wanted to come on board my boat. At the time the engine was on idle mode (very slow moving) it was at this point at 1043am (I have the time recorded on my mobile) when I made the first emergency call to the RGP and informed them of the situation. GC Officers Become Extremely Violent, Pulling Gun At this point the GC officers became extremely agressive towards us, and it was here that we started to fear for our safety. The GC shouted for me to cut off the engines or they would sink the boat, they were saying they wanted to take us to Algeciras. It was then, that one of the Spanish officers pulled out his gun and with both hands, pointed his handgun at me and my friend who at this point, had dived down on the deck of the boat extremely frightened like I was. I called the RGP again! Fearing for our safety and at this stage our lives, I opened up the engine and at full-throttle and high speed fled away from the GC vessel. They GC gave chase coming close to us a number of times. Local Boat Rammed Twice In fact on two occasions the GC vessel, which was now conducting very dangerous and life threatening manoeuvres managed to ram my boat twice making contact with the ‘port-stern’ (left rear end) of my boat, the GC vessel leaving its paint marks on my boat that can be clearly distinguished. It was getting difficult for me to out-manoeuvre the actions of the GC vessel because of the agressive and hostile manner it was coming at us, it all looked unreal that this could be happening because I would not hand them my documents in BGTW! We saw the RGP launch arriving and noticed that the RG marine officers were videoing the GC vessel chasing my boat. The GC were even then, still trying to board us, this was now much closer to land and they were agressively trying to get at us, even with the presence now of the RGP. GC Officers Agressive Also Towards RGP Officers Once the RGP came close the GC officers turned their agression towards the RGP officers, I noticed that the RGP were much more calm about the situation. I have to say that the RGP launch did a good job in protecting us from the hands of the GC vessel, which dangerously persisted in its attempt to detain us all the way to Rosia Bay and the RGP fending them off all the way. 14-08-14 PANORAMAdailyGIBRALTAR