A Maltese citizen of Pakistani origin, Ahmed Sheik Turab, has been sentenced to 30 years in prison for his involvement in the infamous Yohan incident, in which 283 Asian migrants lost their lives on Christmas night 1996.

The ruling handed down by a Sicilian appeals court on Wednesday puts to an end the 13-year saga of the ‘nave fantasma’ (ghost ship) – dubbed as such because Italian and Greek authorities had for years refused to believe survivor’s accounts of the mass drowning.

The Yohan’s Lebanese captain, Youssef El Hallal, had been given a 30-year sentence in April 2008 for his role in ramming, according to surviving witnesses, a severely overcrowded Maltese launch in the Malta-Sicily Channel on the fateful night as the migrants were being transferred – in the process creating the biggest loss of human life in the Mediterranean since WWII.

While Turab had not been aboard either vessel that night, and had in fact warned against undertaking the voyage due to inclement weather forecast, another Maltese and a Greek resident in Malta also lost their lives in the incident.

St Edwards College educated Turab, today 48 years old, was considered the voyage’s organiser. 283 Indians, Pakistanis and Tamil Sri Lankans died in the incident as they were being transferred between the Yohan and a smaller Maltese launch, the F174, ironically a former RAF rescue vessel, in stormy weather before they were to be transported to Sicily.

The two vessels had collided in choppy seas, sinking the Maltese vessel in the process – although many of the survivors have claimed the Maltese vessel had been intentionally rammed.

The plan had been to transfer the migrants to Sicily in smaller groups aboard the Maltese vessel but, according to survivors the Yohan's captain, el Halal, forced the entire cargo of passengers aboard the Maltese launch at the same time, which capsized and sank within seconds. Others contend the vessel had been intentionally rammed.

The Yohan eventually made port in Greece, where survivors recounted their ordeal to authorities – none of which took survivors’ claims seriously until Sicilian fishermen from the Sicilian port of Portopalo began pulling up human remains in their nets.

A deep-sea investigation, carried out by means of a robotic camera, by Italian newspaper La Repubblica finally brought to light a grisly underground cemetery 100 metres under the water’s surface. Turab himself had repeatedly insisted he should not be held responsible for the deaths since, he claimed, he did everything in his power to prevent the fatal course of events.

According to Mr Turab’s testimony, he had decided not to board the boat of the fateful night because the sea was too rough and that he had attempted to persuade the captain to cancel the trip, the organisation of which was then taken over by a Greek associate in his stead.