Foreign sailors stuck indefinitely in San Diego after witnessing alleged environmental crime

A San Diego federal judge has denied a petition that would have allowed six foreign sailors to return home after more than six months of being kept in San Diego by the government as witnesses to an alleged environmental crime.

The decision means the six men from the cargo ship MV Donald, including its Ukrainian captain and five Filipino crew members, will continue to live in San Diego indefinitely until the resolution of a criminal case against the ship’s chief engineer. That man, Russian citizen Denys Korotkiy, has been indicted on four charges related to improper record keeping and obstruction of justice in connection with allegedly dumping oily, contaminated water into the ocean.

The witnesses asked a judge last month to be allowed to give depositions and then return home to their families. Under the rules of federal court, certain foreign witnesses who are detained are entitled to such a process.

U.S. Magistrate Judge David Leshner denied the request Friday, ruling they’re not entitled to depositions because they’re not detained.

That’s because, as part of an agreement with the U.S. Coast Guard, the MV Donald’s owners are paying the witnesses their full salaries and covering the costs of their lodging, food and healthcare. But the witnesses had no say in the agreement, have had their passports taken away and have been ordered by the court not to travel outside California.

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Their predicament has offered a glimpse at a little-known legal mechanism used in maritime cases that allows the U.S. government to hold foreign individuals for months at a time — and sometimes longer — before criminal charges are ever filed.

In this case, the witnesses had been held for nearly six months without Korotkiy being charged. Prosecutors filed the charges against him in mid-November — two days after the witnesses filed their petition.

The witnesses include a 30-year-old oiler who has been away from home in the Philippines since October 2021 and has never met his first child, a boy who will turn 1 year old next month. The ship’s 58-year-old captain has been away from Ukraine during the entirety of Russia’s war, which has prompted his family — including his wife, daughter and grandchild — to flee their hometown on the front lines, seeking refuge in foreign countries.

The witnesses, whose attorneys did not respond to a request for comment, had hoped to return home before Christmas. Now it appears they will be kept indefinitely in San Diego until Korotkiy goes to trial or agrees to a plea deal.