The Iranian oil tanker Grace 1, freshly released by Gibraltar and renamed Adrian Darya 1, has reportedly set sail, maritime tracking data shows. It comes after a last-minute US request demanding its seizure was rejected.
The tanker left the Gibraltar port about midnight local time, the shipping data showed.
Excited ship spotters took to Twitter to report that marine traffic monitoring sites showed the vessel moving towards open seas. However, its speed soon came to a near-halt, prompting discussions as to whether it was a technical problem or a false start.
….and there she goes! After 46 days in Gibraltar Waters sparking an international incident with Iran, the Adrian Darya, formerly the Grace 1, is leaving… pic.twitter.com/IdxWFgVBwm
— GBC News (@GBCNewsroom) August 18, 2019
About half an hour later, however, the tanker picked speed, reaching Spanish waters and heading to international waters.
The tanker with some 2.1 million barrels of oil on board was seized by the UK outside Gibraltar early July. Washington accused the then Panama-flagged ship of transporting the crude to Syria in violation of the US sanctions.
Last week, despite the US authorities’ vocal objections, Gibraltar decided to release the vessel, claiming that it had received assurances that it was not bound for Syria. Teheran, however, subsequently, denied that it had provided any such guarantees.
Also on rt.com Gibraltar rejects new US demand to seize Iranian tanker
On Friday, in a last-ditch attempt to keep the tanker in custody, Washington issued a warrant, seeking the tanker’s arrest, all of its oil and what is said was nearly $1 million in an unnamed US bank, while accusing it of supporting the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) by illegally using the US banking system to finance the shipment.
The British overseas territory pushed back against the demand on Sunday, telling Washington that it was not going implement the US sanctions on Iran, which are much broader than those imposed by the EU.
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