THE captain of an NGO migrant rescue ship was vindicated today after a Maltese court overturned the state’s conviction against him for entering the country’s waters without the proper registration.

The island nation slapped Captain Claus-Peter Reisch with a €10,000 (£8,497) fine last May for sailing without a flag – a legal requirement for all ships sailing at sea.

Mr Reisch and the crew of the Lifeline, a ship operated by the German charity Mission Lifeline, had rescued 234 refugees from the central Mediterranean at the time and were flying the Netherlands’s flag.