ANOTHER GROUP FORMS...BEWARE OF CRUISE SHIPS!

Relatives Of Missing Passengers Form Group

Cruise-ship industry needs more oversight, family members say

Stamford — Relatives of cruise passengers who disappeared on the high seas are forming a new group to seek industry reforms, saying they want to draw attention to how they were treated and the extent of crimes aboard the ships.

The group, which includes eight families so far, will seek a second hearing before Congress. The first hearing last month focused largely on the disappearance of George Allen Smith IV of Greenwich in the Mediterranean Sea last July, one of the latest in a string of disappearances in recent years. “To me the number of disappearances plus the number of sexual assaults they admit to is alarming,” said Brett Rivkind, a lawyer for Smith's family and the new group. “The only way they're going to change is by Congress regulating them.”

In the past five years, the FBI opened 305 criminal cases on the high seas, Chris Swecker, assistant director of the FBI, testified at last month's congressional hearing. Sexual assaults on cruise ships comprised 45 percent of the cases, while physical assaults made up 22 percent and missing persons 10 percent, Swecker said. Besides Smith's case, federal agents are investigating an alleged rape of a passenger on the same cruise, a cruise line spokeswoman said Tuesday. “It's an allegation and we are cooperating with the FBI,” Lynn Martenstein, spokeswoman for Royal Caribbean Cruises, told The Associated Press.

The alleged rape occurred three days after Smith disappeared from the ship, Martenstein said. She called the alleged rape a separate incident. FBI officials declined to comment. Smith vanished July 5 from a Royal Caribbean ship in the Mediterranean Sea between Turkey and Greece. The FBI has been investigating, but no one has been charged and no body has been recovered...

Industry officials estimated that 13 people have disappeared from cruise ships in the past two years. With more than 10 million passengers last year, that means less than one person per million went missing, according to the International Council of Cruise Lines. The council said there are about 50 cruise ship crimes against U.S. citizens reported to the FBI annually, or one crime per 200,000 passengers. “You are much safer on a cruise ship than you are in virtually any community in the United States,” said Michael Crye, president of the council.

U.S. Rep. Christopher Shays, a Connecticut Republican who led the hearing, and other lawmakers question such statistics because they said the industry supplies its own data to the FBI and might be downplaying crime to keep its business thriving. “If we're going to have an impact on what's going on, we need to join together,” said Kendall Carver, whose daughter, Merrian Lynn Carver, disappeared from a cruise in Alaska in August 2004. “I think the public needs to know about it.”

Smith's family contends he was a victim of foul play covered up by a cruise ship line eager to avoid bad publicity. “The lack of information given by cruise lines is abysmal and I think that needs to change,” Bree Smith, George Smith's sister, said Tuesday. “To be a victim of one of these crimes and never see any justice done, it adds insult to injury.” The cruise line has said it handled the incident appropriately and has cooperated fully with investigators. The new group does not have a name yet, but is organizing through an e-mail, cruisevictims@cox.net.