Malaysia says oil tanker 'not hijacked

Malaysia says oil tanker 'not hijacked'

Malaysian authorities say ship carrying 900,000 litres of diesel has not been hijacked as earlier reported.

A Malaysian oil tanker which was earlier reported to have been hijacked as it sailed into Indonesian waters has been 'taken' due to a commercial dispute, Malaysian authorities have said.

A spokesman for the Malaysian Maritime Enforcement Agency (MMEA) said on Wednesday that the ship, Vier Harmoni, which is carrying 900,000 litres of diesel, had been taken due to a disagreement between the ship's management and the crew.

Al Jazeera's Step Vaessen, reporting from the Indonesian capital Jakarta, said the captain and crew were believed to have no intention of selling the oil.

"Malaysian and Indonesian authorities are not calling this a hijacking or an act of piracy, they're calling this an internal dispute.

"The Indonesian crew on the Indonesian boat took the tanker - full of oil - back to Indonesia after not being paid for well over a month. It was a Malaysian company that chartered the boat but it's a dispute between the Indonesian owner and the Indonesian crew," she said.

Vaessen said the tanker was near the Indonesian island of Batam and the crew had "no intention of selling the oil."

The ship had sailed from the Tanjung Pelepas port, in Malaysia, on Monday.

In June last year, pirates hijacked the Orkim Victory, a Malaysian tanker, and pumped the oil from it into another tanker before releasing it.