“The Gibraltar Central Authority is unable [to] seek an Order of the Supreme Court of Gibraltar to provide the restraining assistance required by the United States of America,” read an emailed statement from the Gibraltar government on Sunday.
“The Central Authority’s inability to seek the Orders requested is a result of the operation of European Union law and the differences in the sanctions regimes applicable to Iran in the EU and the US.”
Gibraltar’s Supreme Court ruled to end the six-week detention of the Grace 1 and its cargo of two million barrels of oil on Thursday.
The court said it was unable to accede to a request from the US Justice Department to continue the detention as a preliminary step to initiate legal proceedings in the US.
The court ruled that the offences referred to in the US request were not considered offences in Gibraltar.
The US provided further information on Friday in connection to the restraint request.
“In particular, the US disclosed to the Gibraltar CA various elements that indicated that the IRGC controlled the Grace 1 and its cargo,” the Gibraltar government statement read, referring to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC).
“In these circumstances, although the additional information provided on 16 August 2019 does create a closer nexus with those elements of the EU sanctions regime against Iran that are still active, we the Central Authority do not consider that such a nexus is sufficient to establish that the offences set out in the US request come within the definition of criminal conduct for the purposes of Gibraltar laws.”
The Grace 1 tanker was seized on July 4 by Britain’s Royal Marines at the request of the Gibraltar authorities on suspicion of transferring two million barrels of Iranian oil to Syria, which is under EU sanctions.
On Friday, Iranian officials said the tanker was preparing to set sail under an Iranian flag and had been renamed the Adrian Darya for the voyage on July 15.
The IRGC responded to the seizure of Grace 1 by impounding the British-flagged tanker Stena Impero on July 19.
Gibraltar authorities said the IRGC is not a terrorist entity according to Gibraltarian, British, or EU law and that the EU’s sanctions regime on Iran “is fundamentally different to that of the US”.
