Page 20 - Insurance Times November 2023

aware that Mockett's investigation had come to disagree given by the crew, he found them bizarre. It was hard to
with Iliopoulos' insurance claim. believe an experienced captain would invite armed men
onto his ship in the middle of the night, in the world's most
In July 2011, Captain David Mockett was dividing his time dangerous waterway, if there was any question about their
between Yemen, where he worked as a marine surveyor, identity.
and England, where he, his wife, and two adult daughters
lived. His job was to conduct independent investigations of At Lloyd's, tens of millions of dollars in insurance payouts
incidents at sea for any one of the many interested parties were waiting on Mockett's findings. As he prepared his
when something goes wrong on a large commercial vessel.in report, he shared his misgivings with some of the other
this case, for insurers at Lloyd's of London who wanted his shipping hands some local, some from overseas assembling
assessment of an apparent incident of piracy involving an around the tanker, including one hired to offload its oil. On
oil tanker named the Brillante Virtuoso, which had been July 19, Mockett emailed the man to say he begun to suspect
boarded and then set ablaze in the middle of the night while that the supposed Somali pirates were neither Somali nor
traveling through the Gulf of Aden. pirates, but rather rogue elements of the Yemeni coast
guard or navy. He promised to explain more soon.
When Mockett had received the assignment of the Brillante;
Poseidon's head salvor, a gnarled Greek diving expert named The next day, at about 1pm, Mockett took his laptop, left
'Vassilios Vergos', refused to give him access to the wreck his office, and climbed into his car. He had driven a short
for almost a week.an unusual and unexplained delay. Finally, distance onto Ma'Œalla, Aden's main street, when the bomb
Mockett chartered a fishing trawler to get to the tanker, that had been carefully placed under his seat detonated.
where Vergos insisted on accompanying him on his rounds. The blast was focused and powerful, loud enough to be
The ship, groaning in heavy seas, had a deceptive heard blocks away. It killed Mockett instantly, almost
appearance.the exterior was largely intact, while the blowing his door off its hinges. As the car burned, smoke
mechanical and crew sections within were a total ruin. As filled the sky, a crowd of locals in traditional white caps
Mockett began exploring, he found deep puddles of oily pushed toward the flames, shouting. Mockett's body lay on
seawater left behind by three days of firefighting. Inside the the street next to the broken door, one arm extended, bent
accommodation block, the beam from his flashlight reflected at the wrist, as if reaching for the gearstick. The murder
the blackened metal contorted by heat and crusted with was shocking even in a city accustomed to bombings. A small
soot. The engine room, near where the fire had begun, was crowd held a procession a few days later, carrying placards
half-flooded, with ladders that descended into inky sludge. bearing Mockett's photo and chanting, God be merciful, God
It was too dangerous to go deeper. Mockett spent the night receive him.
on the trawler. On his way back to Aden, he contemplated
the strangeness of what he had seen. The Yemeni Ministry of the Interior ordered an investigation,
and local police asked one of Mockett's closest friends in
As a rule, pirates don't set fire to valuable ships they hijack Aden, a fellow Brit named Roy Facey, to write a report.
them and hold their crews and cargo for ransom. Nor do Facey's contacts in the area warned him not to include
they abandon vessels after doing the difficult work of getting anything too inflammatory. In the document, which he
on board and taking control. Over the next several days, submitted on July 23, Facey described discussing the Brillante
Mockett expanded on his suspicions over tea in his office with Mockett just before he died and hearing him dismiss
with friends, paging through hundreds of photos on his the story of Somali pirates. Facey suspected Mockett had
laptop. He had a reputation as a careful, by-the-book been killed because of what he learned and he now
surveyor, hesitant about inference or speculation. 'Evidence, possessed the same dangerous knowledge. On July 25, Facey
dear boy, evidence' was one of his stock phrases. The was awakened at 1:30 a.m. by a call from the British
Brillante evidence didn't add up to the story that was doing embassy in Sana'Œa, the capital. A woman told him his life
rounds everywhere. There was no sign that the attackers was in danger. She wouldn't describe the threat or how the
had used rocket-propelled grenades.one of the few pirate embassy knew about it, only saying he should hide until
tactics he could think of that could realistically cause an someone could retrieve him and then leave the country
explosion and fire. And when Mockett reviewed accounts immediately. Facey locked himself inside his apartment for

The Insurance Times November 2023 19