One of the organizers of Freedom Flotilla III trip, Dror Feiler Wednesday said that Marianne of Gothenburg is about to set off to Gaza within a few hours.Today, however,m the story has changed:
One of the ships taking part in a flotilla headed towards Gaza strip was sabotaged south of Crete, an activist aboard one of the ships said Thursday.
Israeli-born Swedish activist Dror Feiler told Nazareth-based al-Shams radio that the ship had been sabotaged by professionals, and would have sunk if sailed at sea.
"Somebody went underneath the ship at night and sabotaged its propellers, just like they sabotaged the same ship in 2011,” Fieler said referring to similar damage that was inflicted upon a ship participating in a previous flotilla.
Feiler, who relinquished his Israeli citizenship after moving to Sweden, boarded the trawler Marianne of Gothenburg in Sweden with 18 other activists six weeks ago. The crew had refrained from stopping at European ports prior to avoid being held by authorities, but their trip was cut short after realizing that they might have drowned had they continued.
Despite the sabotage, the remainder of the flotilla convoy will move as planned with the ships expected arrive in Gaza in succession within three days, Feiler said.
I've been watching the Marianne av Goteburg on Internet vessel search sites since yesterday. Here's its track for the past two days (the thin blue line on the bottom:)
It was going straight until sometime during the day Wednesday, and it started circling about 24 hours ago. If it was in danger of sinking, as claimed - why didn't it go to a port?
Silently sabotaging a propeller on a moving ship sounds very suspicious to me as well.
Not that I don't believe that Israel might do that, but this story isn't adding up.
UPDATE 6-26: Miraculously, the ship has been on its way for about the past 20 hours
