Tunisian was forced to captain migrant boat ‘at gunpoint’

TUNIS: The Tunisian man accused of piloting a migrant boat that sank off Libya, killing more than 700 people, is himself a migrant who was forced at gunpoint to captain the ship because of his experience as a fisherman, his brother said on Saturday.
Italian authorities say the man named in court as Mohammed Ali Malek, 27, was in charge of the heavily overloaded fishing boat that capsized shortly before midnight on April 18 with hundreds of African and Bangladeshi migrants locked below deck.
The man’s brother told Reuters the Tunisian’s real name was Nourredine Mahjoub and he had first traveled clandestinely to Europe five years ago, spending time in Italy and France before being deported. He had recently returned to Libya seeking work.
“My brother was recruited by Libyans to work in a cafe in Libya a few weeks ago, but afterwards he was forced under threat by smugglers to pilot the voyage because he knows a little about the sea and worked with our father fishing,” the brother, Makrem Mahjoub, said by telephone.
He said his brother had called from a Libyan number a few days earlier to say he had been threatened by men with Kalashnikovs and ordered to pilot the ship. “They took him to the boat. When he called, he was in shock and crying.”
Makrem Mahjoub said the family comes from the eastern fishing town of Chebba.
“My brother was in Italy after a clandestine journey five years ago after leaving from Chebba. He was in Mazara in Italy before he was deported from Lyon in France after two years there,” he said. He said he later returned to the family home, making his living as a fisherman with his father and three other brothers.