The cap­tain and crew of a Pana­man­ian-reg­is­tered oil and chem­i­cal tanker, who were de­tained for two months in 2020, ex­posed to Covid-19 and de­nied treat­ment, and were blocked from com­mu­ni­cat­ing with their fam­i­lies, are set to re­ceive over $6 mil­lion in com­pen­sa­tion.

On Thurs­day, High Court Judge West­min James or­dered the com­pen­sa­tion as he up­held a law­suit brought by the 13 crew mem­bers from South and Latin Amer­i­ca over the treat­ment they re­ceived from lo­cal law en­force­ment of­fi­cers while they and the ves­sel were held for sus­pect­ed drug traf­fick­ing.

Jus­tice James found that their rights un­der sev­er­al sec­tions of the Con­sti­tu­tion were breached and or­dered $450,000 for each of the men.