The ship Cherry Blossom has just left the territorial waters of South Africa. Seized on May 1 following a request for seizure with the seal of the separatist movement Polisario, the ship that was carrying a cargo of the Office Cherifien des Phosphates (OCP) was at the center of a legal imbroglio combining politics and diplomacy.
Today and after unsuccessful attempts to sell the cargo, the refusal of all potential buyers to acquire the goods is clear and irrefutable evidence of the illegitimacy of the property granted by the Port Elizabeth District Court. to the polisario “says Otmane Bennani-Smires, Executive Vice President and General Counsel of the OCP Group, quoted in the statement.
The document states that it is in this context, and in order to release the ship, that the shipowner purchased the cargo by paying the sole costs of the adjudicator and returned it to its owner legitimate Phosboucraa for a symbolic dollar.
The OCP Group denounces the processes likely to harm the local communities that are the first to benefit from the Group’s activity in the region, and OCP therefore reaffirms its unconditional commitment to them.
