Panama seizes North Korean ship carrying weapons cargo

Panamanian authorities say they have stopped a North Korean-flagged ship sailing from Cuba through the Panama Canal carrying “undeclared military cargo”, in a potential breach of UN sanctions.

Ricardo Martinelli, Panama’s president, inspected the vessel himself on Monday night alongside security forces and said the ship was apparently carrying “sophisticated missile equipment”.

José Raul Mulino, Panama’s security minister, said Panama’s security services had been tracking the ship since last Wednesday. He told the Financial Times that the presumed weaponry on board “appears to be much more than a conventional weapon. I don’t want to speculate until we have the final confirmation because this is a very delicate issue.”

“Simply, you cannot go around shipping military material through a country declaring it as something else, and most of all, hidden,” Mr Martinelli, told a local TV station late on Monday. “Panama is a country that loves peace, not war, a country that abides by all UN resolutions.”

Mr Martinelli said the cargo was found in two containers hidden underneath a large load of Cuban sugar, and posted a picture of a large olive green tubular object with a flat conical tip on his Twitter account.

The vessel was stopped by Panamanian intelligence services amid suspicion it was carrying drugs and intercepted close to the port of Manzanillo on the Caribbean side of the Panama Canal.

Earlier this month Chinese state broadcaster CCTV reported that General Kim Kyok Sik, North Korea’s military chief, had visited Cuba met the Communist-led nation’s leader Raúl Castro. Spanish media quoted the general as saying: “I visit Cuba to find companions of the same trench.”

However, Daniel Pinkston, a North Korea expert at the International Crisis Group, said: “The ship came from Cuba, but that doesn’t mean the parts came from Cuba. The sugar run could have been part of a deception campaign to avoid detection.”

Local authorities said the ship aroused even more suspicion because of the reaction of the 35-men crew, who sought to prevent the ship being redirected. The captain, according to President Martinelli, “initially suffered what looked like a heart attack and then attempted to commit suicide”.

Javier Caraballo, Panama’s anti-drugs prosecutor, told local television he believed the ship was en route to North Korea. According to the Associated Press, the vessel is the North Korean ship the Chong Chon Gang and has been detained in the past for trafficking narcotics and small arms ammunition.

“North Korea [has] employed deception tactics before,” said Mr Pinkston . “Considering closer scrutiny of North Korea shipments in recent years, I wouldn’t be surprised if the details of this interdiction reveal extensive deception tactics as well.”

North Korea faces strict UN sanctions which were toughened after Pyongyang’s third nuclear test in February. Panamanian authorities believe the ship was violating UN resolutions.

Mr Mulino said the government had asked for the support of “friendly governments” in the investigation in order to determine the real nature of the cargo, but if it was confirmed it contained ballistic systems, Panama “will go, most surely, to the UN Security Council”.

Previous violations of sanctions included North Korean shipments of arms-related material to Syria in November 2010 and rocket fuses for Iran in 2008, according to a UN report in May.