Another interesting AQ ship story:
http://www.debka.com/article.php?aid=145 Note -- ships also owned by Greeks. I wonder who owns the Athena, could it be the same guy, who owns these two? OR could the Athena be the missing Cristi (see last paragraph).
Cristi disappear around Oct. 18 -- everyone is madly searching Athena, starting Oct. 30, that we know of... and even now, ever since.
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"DEBKAfile’s maritime and counter-terror sources report that the Cristi , like the Sara, which was detained in Italy carrying suspected Pakistani terrorists, and another suspect vessel, Twillinger, is owned by the Greek ship-owner, Dimitris Kokkos, and a Pakistani-American, Rifat Muhammed.
The Twillinger was detained on February 19 at Trieste with 8 al Qaeda operatives aboard posing as Pakistani crewmen. American and Italian investigators are still not sure if they laid hands on the entire ring. According to certain intelligence reports, twice that number secretly disembarked before the ship docked, and is now hiding out somewhere in Europe.
The pattern of al Qaeda’s maritime operations began emerging when the Romanian captain of the Sara, Adrian Pop Sorian was questioned. Small, fairly beaten-up, rusty cargo vessels sail out of Constanza for the Mediterranean carrying an innocent cargo and a Romanian crew. At Nador, Morocco, a band of operatives disguised as seamen, who are flown in from Karachi, comes aboard after collecting cash, addresses, instructions and false Pakistani papers on shore. The new “passengers” then take command of the vessel, which the crew is under orders from the owners Muhammed and Kokkos to hand over.
At sea, the ship assumes a new name and flag. Before steaming into a European port, the vessel rendezvous with a second ship and offloads the terrorists, enabling them to infiltrate a European port, masquerading now as distressed stowaway immigrants.
More facts reached DEBKAfile’s counter-terror sources in the course of the multi-national naval hunt still in progress for the Cristi. An international dragnet has been set up for Kokkos and Muhammed. The latter is the al Qaeda chief of naval operations in the Persian Gulf and Mediterranean. Kokkos comes from the Greek crime scene and is willing if the pay is right to seek out old but fairly sound vessels for al Qaeda’s use.
The missing Cristi was last seen around October 18 between Crete and Cyprus heading east - either to Cyprus, Lebanon or Israel. Considering its direction, Israeli defense authorities resolved to try and capture the terrorist ship, fearing the men aboard were bent on a mega-terror strike against Israel from the sea.
Your article posted above states this (last sentence) "The Athena visited Auckland and Tauranga before arriving in Lyttelton on October 2 and leaving for South Korea on October 4.
So I don't think the Athena is the Cristi since she disappeared around Oct. 18th.
But, you have a good collection and memory of ship related info. Need to follow all this and see where is leads. Wouldn't surprise me if it leads to no good.