The one person charged in connection with the Christmas Day 1996 tragedy in the sea between Malta and Sicily, in which 283 asylum seekers lost their lives, has been freed by a Syracuse court.

Pakistani Turab Ahmed Sheik, who resides in Malta, was freed last week by the Syracuse Appeals Court, presided by Romualdo Benanti after two-and-a-half hours of deliberation.

The accused was charged with the voluntary plural homicide of the asylum seekers who perished 19 miles off Portopalo di Capo Passero.

The court proceedings began in 2001 following the publication, in La Repubblica, of a long report by Giovanni Maria Bellu, who, with the use of a subaqua robot, had found the F-174 and the victims’ corpses around and underneath the boat’s remains.

Even today, despite the many appeals and the promise by Italian Prime Minister Romano Prodi, who commissioned a study, the victims’ remains are still on the sea floor.