This was revealed Monday night by Panama’s President Ricardo Martinelli, who said the captain of the ship attempted suicide, "We suspected that [the vessel] had drugs and brought it to port and started to verify everything that was on the boat”. The president said the vessel “contained suspected “sophisticated missile equipment”. He posted a photo of what looked like a large green object inside a cargo container on his Twitter account.
According to local media the vessel is North Korean-flagged Chong Chon Gang, coming from Cuba with a cargo of 220,000 quintals of sugar.
The president, in an interview on local radio-Radio Panama- said authorities will initiate an investigation. "The Panama Canal is one of peace and not of war," said the president who went to Colon with the Minister of Public Security Jose Raul Mulino. "Let the world know that you cannot transit the waterway with undeclared war material," Martinelli said.
The prosecutor Javier Caraballo, was first instructed to retain the ship and call an inspection on board before the ship transited the Panama Canal. Due to the failure to receive assistance from the 35-men crew for the review, port authorities cut the moorings, moving the vessel by tug to the port of Manzanillo, where it remains under the orders of the competent authorities.
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