Ship captain charged for recklessly causing disaster

Last Friday we reported the arrest of the captain of the Caribe Mariner, Whitman Gentle. Gentle spent the weekend in the lock up and today, the twenty-nine year old Honduran boat captain was charged in Magistrates’ Court with Recklessly Causing a Disaster that Resulted in a Loss of the Use of the Environment. He was offered bail of fifty thousand dollars and his case was adjourned until April twenty-third. On November twenty-first, two thousand eight, Gentle was piloting the cargo ship that ran aground near the south western area of the Turneffe Atoll. After prolonged investigations, on February twenty-seventh, over three months after the incident occurred, Chief Environmental Officer for the Department of Environment, Martin Alegria, reported the incident to police. The damage to the reef has been estimated to be ten million ninety-eight thousand dollars. The Department of the Environment is expected to seek three times that amount in court.