The man who was port commandant of Saint-Nazaire, France in December 1999 and forbade stricken tanker Erika from entering the port of Donges, now works for the Malta Maritime Authority, the tribunal considering responsibility for the pollution tragedy heard last week.

The testimony by Mr Tcheng referred to the events on Saturday 11 December 1999 when the old and single-hulled tanker was battling the storms off the coast of Brittany but could, conceivably, have been saved had it been allowed to enter the harbour of Donges.

Following the refusal, and also the ship’s captain’s decision to withdraw the distress call he had made earlier, the ship spent a terrible night battling the waves only for it to sink the next day with a vast quantity of fuel leaking from its tanks polluting the shores of Brittany.

The issue at the court hearing last week was why Mr Tcheng decided to refuse entry to the ship and whether he knew the ship was in bad shape and leaking fuel at the time.

The court ordered a confrontation between Mr Tcheng and the two previous witnesses, Mr Gergaud from the agency Pomme and Mr El Fillali from the agency Stockloire, from whom he had obtained information regarding the state of the ship.

While Mr El Fillali confirmed he had not mentioned fuel losses, Mr Tcheng repeated he had referred to both fuel losses and fissures in the ship’s hull, and it was because of this information that he had refuse the ship entry to the harbour.

Asked by Judge Tordjman if he systematically refused entry to ships with fissures, Mr Tcheng replied this happened only rarely and he was also aware that the ship was carrying heavy fuel and was leaking.

Another point on which the witnesses could not agree concerned the involvement of the owner of the fuel in the ship, oil giant Total. Mr Tcheng repeated his earlier claims that Total had requested the other oil company Elf to allow the ship to discharge its cargo in Elf’s refinery in Donges. Mr El Fillali however once again denied he had given this information, which Mr Tcheng described as “logical and credible”, to Mr Tcheng.

The two companies were going through a merger procedure at that time.