{"id":7605,"date":"2020-04-08T03:57:27","date_gmt":"2020-04-08T00:57:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.al-sindbad.net\/police-launches-criminal-investigation-into-docking-disembarking-of-coronavirus-hit-ruby-princess\/7605\/"},"modified":"2020-04-08T03:57:27","modified_gmt":"2020-04-08T00:57:27","slug":"police-launches-criminal-investigation-into-docking-disembarking-of-coronavirus-hit-ruby-princess","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.al-sindbad.net\/police-launches-criminal-investigation-into-docking-disembarking-of-coronavirus-hit-ruby-princess\/7605\/","title":{"rendered":"Police Launches Criminal Investigation into Docking, Disembarking of Coronavirus-Hit Ruby Princess"},"content":{"rendered":"

The New South Wales Police Force has commenced an investigation into the circumstances surrounding the docking and disembarking<\/a> of the coronavirus-hit cruise vessel Ruby Princess last month that led to numerous infections and deaths in the region.<\/strong><\/p>\n

After being tasked to conduct initial investigations, NSW Police Commissioner Mick Fuller said on April 5 that a criminal investigation is now underway to fully examine the communications, actions, and other circumstances that led to the docking and disembarking of the vessel at Sydney Harbour on March 19, 2020.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

It is expected the investigation will involve interviewing thousands of witnesses, including the Ruby Princess\u2019 captain and doctors, the crew and passengers as well as staff from various Commonwealth and NSW Government offices and agencies.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Commissioner Fuller said his initial assessment of the vessel\u2019s pratique left questions about the transparency in conceptualizing the health conditions of passengers and crew in relation to COVID-19.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve examined a number of phone calls between NSW Ambulance, Port Authority of NSW and NSW Police that stemmed from the initial 17-minute Triple Zero call from the ship to NSW Ambulance on March 18,\u201d<\/em> Fuller said.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

\u201cThere appears to have been an exceptional amount of effort put in by ports to determine the true nature of the conditions on board \u2013 and even delayed the vessels arrival until they were provided additional information.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

\u201cAfter reviewing the information at hand, the only way I can determine whether our national biosecurity laws or our state laws were broken is through a criminal investigation,\u201d<\/em> he explained.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

The Commissioner added that investigators will examine the actions of everyone involved \u2013 whether from the cruise company or government agencies.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is a complex issue and we will need information from many witnesses to answer all the questions about how this ship ended up docking last month.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are mindful that some of the key information we need will also come from passengers, so I urge those who were on-board to reach out to us \u2013 please contact Crime Stoppers as soon as possible.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

As World Maritime News earlier reported, the cruise ship with a total of 2,647 passengers on board, arrived and disembarked<\/a> in Sydney last month although some of them were displaying influenza-like symptoms. As a result, Ruby Princess is believed to have become Australia\u2019s biggest source of COVID-19 infections.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Four people aboard the ship \u2014 three guests and one crew \u2014 initially tested positive for the coronavirus. The three passengers left the ship and received medical attention while the crew member remained in isolation on the vessel. One of the infected three guests later passed away<\/a> in a local hospital. Ruby Princess\u2019 death toll has so far increased to more than ten.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

To date there have been more than 300 confirmed cases of COVID-19 diagnosed in NSW in passengers who all acquired their infection while on, or in some cases, possibly before boarding the Ruby Princess cruise, NSW Health said last week. All passengers were advised to self-isolate for 14 days following disembarkation.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, the cruise company is struggling to repatriate the crew currently on board Ruby Princess on compassionate and humanitarian grounds.<\/p>\n

world maritime news<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The New South Wales Police Force has commenced an investigation into the circumstances surrounding the docking and disembarking of the coronavirus-hit cruise vessel Ruby Princess last month that led to numerous infections and deaths in the region. After being tasked to conduct initial investigations, NSW Police Commissioner Mick Fuller said on April 5 that a …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":7606,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[64],"tags":[1374,4391,4300,2347,1212,1586,2827,1438,3561],"class_list":["post-7605","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-maritime-news","tag-coronavirushit","tag-criminal","tag-disembarking","tag-docking","tag-investigation","tag-launches","tag-police","tag-princess","tag-ruby"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.al-sindbad.net\/rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7605","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.al-sindbad.net\/rest\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.al-sindbad.net\/rest\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.al-sindbad.net\/rest\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.al-sindbad.net\/rest\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7605"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.al-sindbad.net\/rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7605\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.al-sindbad.net\/rest\/wp\/v2\/media\/7606"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.al-sindbad.net\/rest\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7605"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.al-sindbad.net\/rest\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7605"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.al-sindbad.net\/rest\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7605"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}