Posted on 07/16/2013 2:57:55 AM PDT by Pan_Yan
President Ricardo Martinelli told local media that the ship, which was sailing from Cuba, contained suspected "sophisticated missile equipment".
...
The ship was stopped near Manzanillo on the Atlantic side of the canal.
Mr Martinelli said the authorities were checking the ship for drugs when they found the suspected weapons in containers of brown sugar.
"We're going to keep unloading the ship and figure out exactly what was inside," he told local media.
The 35-member crew have been detained, including the captain who the Panamanian president said tried to kill himself during the search.
Security Minister Jose Raul Mulino said the ship "aroused suspicion by the violent reaction of the captain and the crew".
(Excerpt) Read more at bbc.co.uk ...
Bump. Would like to see the follow up on this one, with a listing of all they find.
They must have been hauling a lot more than sugar if the captain tried to off himself when the ship was searched.
That certainly would be serious cause to really go through that ship.
Certainly....odd.
I think the captain wasn’t looking forward to life in a Panamanian prison. He also may have been smuggling for the Russians and wasn’t looking forward to any punishment from them.
The article has a nice picture of the military hardware. It’s a missile shaped thing but is hexagonal (octagonal?) instead of a real cylinder. You can see how big it is compared to the corrogation of the cargo container. It may be 15 feet long and 3 feet in diamter.
What is it?
Farming Implements.
He must have a family. If he was single he would have thrown himself at their feet and begged asylum rather that go home without his cargo.
“Sailing from Cuba”? That means they already dropped their cargo off and were going home?
Cuban missile crisis redux? How much warning would we have if the Norks launched a nuke from Cuba to the east coast?
Based on recent testing if they launched a nuclear tipped missile at New York City we'd have about 30 minutes notice before it fizzled out over Tiajuana.
I thought it would be enroute to NK, but NK already has copied the SCUD, including the SCUD-D. Maybe NK actually built it, and the freighter was going to deliver it somewhere else.
BTTT!
Monroe Doctrine ==> Obama al Qaeda Caliphate
It appears the seized weapons shown in the released photos were the radar portion of an SA-2 assembly.
Thanks.
Thanks Pan_Yan.
It isn’t a SCUD. The images released show parts of the Fan Song radar system that guides SA-2 surface to air missiles. Remember the types that shot down U-2s over Cuba and Russia? Cuba has just announced that they were sending the systems to North Korea for repair.
http://theaviationist.com/2013/07/16/north-korea-ship-panama/#.UeZc8I3VCSo
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