EXCLUSIVE: Syrian Justice Evader Paid EUR800 For Refuge Aboard Cargo Ship

At this point, Al-Razzaq’s statements contradict Hassam’s statements who said he fled Romania “like a gentleman, his head held high, dressed to the nines, with a fake passport and a new look.”

"I want to tell the truth concerning the information I hold on Omar Hayssam’s runaway and the people who helped him in the process, but I do not want to be pressured or threatened in any way. I want you to know that in June 2006, while I was working on Iman T, as captain, and, as the ship anchored in Constanta seaport, I was informed by the ship's owner, Mustafa Tartoussi, that he will send somebody on board of the ship and started to enlarge on the matter.He said this person is having some problems with the Romanian authorities, without uttering this person’s name, citizenship or the problems he was faced with. He told me nothing else and then he contacted me again after a few days when the ship was all loaded and the travel papers had  been drawn up," Youssef Abd Al-Razzaq Tartoussi said in his statement.

Al-Razzaq said Tartoussi told him "once again he would send somebody aboard the ship, although he knew nothing about this person, expect for the fact that he was to be sheltered in the cabin of the ship’s head engineer Ibrahim Sheikh, and that the engineer was to attend to Hassam."

"I was reluctant to the whole situation, as I knew the Romanian authorities will be informed on the matter. As captain of the ship, I informed him on a person’s illegal staying aboard the ship. I told him that, after the ship’s departure and soon as seaport authorities have checked the ship, I must inform the Romanian authorities on the situation. I do not know whether this person did get on the ship. The next morning, after the ship traveled through the legal distance, Ibrahim Sheikh came to me and said the person we had talked about was accommodated in one of the ship’s cabins," the captain said.

The captain says Sheikh is "solely responsible" for Hayssam’s getting aboard the ship and that "nobody else knew about it."

Romania’s Intelligence Service tapped several phone calls between the Syrian and prosecutor Nastasiu, the person who accused Hayssam for kidnapping the Romanian journalists, and declassified and used the recordings during the trial of Mustafa Tartoussi. The latter is investigated in connection with the escape of Omar Hayssam.

The respective recordings are dated between August 14 and September 18, 2006.

The recordings were authorized by the chairman who at the time led the Bucharest Court of Appeals.

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