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June 24th, 2012 
FAKE NEWS for the Zionist agenda
SIPRI insists the certificates appear genuine, and that there is therefore a
case for Mr Skinner to be investigated under EU sanctions law because his
firm has offices in Britain, Germany and Cyprus. They further claim he may
be in breach of separate international sanctions imposed on Iran over its
nuclear programme, since the ships concerned were owned by a blacklisted
Iranian shipping company. Iran is Syria’s strategic ally and has been
accused of providing logistical help to Damascus in its brutal crackdown on
dissent, which activists say has already claimed some 14,000 lives.
Hugh Griffiths, an arms smuggling investigator who now heads SIPRI’s
Countering Illicit Trafficking-Mechanism Assessment Projects, known as
CITMAP, said: “Oil is more important to the Assad regime than weapons
right now, as they are short of currency reserves to pay their security
forces. If Iranian tankers such as the ones DGS Marine appear to have
insured were stopped from transferring Syrian oil, the Assad regime would
lose control far more quickly than is occurring now.”
This weekend the Syrian crisis showed no sign of easing, with United Nations
observers still stuck in their bases because of escalating violence, and 125
people reported killed in a single day on Thursday. Meanwhile, the MV
Alaed, a ship revealed last week by The Sunday Telegraph to be carrying
refurbished Russian attack helicopters back to Syria, was preparing
to make a second attempt to deliver its cargo from the Russian port of
Murmansk. It had previously been forced to turn around after the ship’s
British insurers withdrew cover.
The allegations against Mr Skinner concern two tankers, the Amin and the
MT Tour, now called the Layal. Both are owned by subsidiaries of
Islamic Republic of Iran Shipping Lines, which is the subject of EU, US and
UN sanctions because of its links to Tehran’s disputed nuclear programme.
In late March, the MT Tour arrived at the Syrian port of Tartus and
picked up around 100,000 tonnes of Syrian light crude oil. At the time it
was flying the flag of Malta, an EU member, but when the Maltese authorities
investigated and suspended the ship’s registration, it changed to a Bolivian
flag. The MT Tour then sailed through the Suez Canal and the Gulf of
Aden, before anchoring near the Iranian port of Bander Abbas. A few days
later, the Amin completed a similar journey with an 80,000 tonne oil
load, likewise changing its flag from Malta to Bolivia.
It is understood the ships’ cargoes may have been destined for sale in China
or on the international oil black market – possibly earning the Assad regime
several million dollars.
Mr Skinner describes himself as a former underwriting manager’s representative
and maritime lawyer with a “leading UK admiralty law firm”, with
nearly 30 years’ experience in providing protection and indemnity insurance,
a specialist maritime policy that typically covers damage to cargo, and
injury to passengers and crew.
However, at the DGS Marine Group’s registered office at Bahnhofstrasse 7 in
Liechtenstein, an anonymous grey office block, there is no sign or letterbox
for the company, and reception staff said they had heard of neither the firm
or Mr Skinner. Instead, the office block is mainly occupied by the Jeeves
Group of companies, which specialise in setting up offshore firms.
Insurance certificates obtained by CITMAP from the Bolivian Maritime
Authority, to which both the MT Tour and Amin re-registered,
appear to show that DGS Marine Group issued cover for both vessels from
August 2011 to August 2012. The certificates, which bear the stamp of DGS
Marine Group’s Denmark office, state: “This certificate has been issued
for and on behalf of the British, European and Overseas P and I Insurance by
the agents of the managers”, who are listed as DGS Marine in
Liechtenstein. They also list a UK mobile number as a 24 hour emergency
hotline, which matches the one on DGS Marine Group’s website.
Contacted by phone last week, Mr Skinner, who said he was on business in
Singapore, claimed to have known about the signed certificates for some
time, and said that they could be forgeries. “That is a digital
signature of mine which obviously can be fraudulently duplicated anywhere,”
he said. Asked if he had contacted the Bolivian authorities for explanation,
he replied: “I have tried to contact the person concerned and all I get
is a voicemail.” He also said that had he issued genuine insurance
certificates, the Bolivian authorities would have issued reciprocal civil
liability certificates – documents relating to international liability for
oil spills – but that they had not done so.
Griffiths, however, showed The Sunday Telegraph email correspondence he
had with the Bolivian shipping authorities, who forwarded him copies of the
certificates they had received from DGS, with whom they had been in touch by
email.
Mr Skinner, when asked if he had insured the MT Tour or the Amin,
insisted: “No. I have asked all my EU offices and they have no records
on their databases on those two ships. I have asked my Liechtenstein office
to verify whether this is correct or not. They have not got back to me as
yet. Of course I wouldn’t approve of insuring Iranian vessels if they are in
breach of sanctions.”
He said the violence in Syria was “shocking and disgraceful” and he
was planning a charitable donation to help those caught up in it. “I
have personally contributed €25,000 to the Red Cross and Red Crescent in
Switzerland. That’s what I asked my wife to do anyway, I don’t know if she
has done it yet.”
Further question marks exist over where Mr Skinner’s insurance group is
regulated. While DGS Marine Group is located in Liechtenstein, it is not
authorised to operate there as an insurance underwriter. The DGS Marine website
says that its protection and indemnity facility is registered in the
Bahamas, but the islands’ authorities say it is not licensed to carry out
insurance business from there either.
“That is news to me,” said Mr Skinner. “I can’t explain that. I
will have to investigate myself, because that is not correct.”
Last week Samuel Roth, of the Leichtenstein government’s financial
intelligence unit, said it was investigating the company. “They are not
registered as an insurer, so it seems surprising that they can offer
insurance. We are looking into the issue of sanctions as well.”
Mr Skinner said he was British-educated but South African born and now lived
in Lausanne, Switzerland, and did not hold British citizenship. Asked why
DGS Marine Group’s 2012 return at Companies House in Britain listed him as a
British citizen “usually resident” in the UK, he said: “Yes,
I was born in South Africa, but I do hold a British passport. If that makes
me a British citizen, then I apologise for any oversight.”
Mr Griffiths said Britain should now investigate whether Mr Skinner had
breached sanctions. “He is a British citizen using British mobile phone
numbers, British servers and British email addresses as well as London
offices, to conduct an insurance operation which appears to have facilitated
the illicit transfer of Syrian oil and sanctioned Iranian shipping.”
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