Three Taiwanese crew members on trial in Mauritius for murdering two people on their fishing vessel were found not guilty recently and returned to Taiwan June 11, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) said Tuesday. The MOFA is pleased to learn that the Mauritius court ruled the three crew members not guilty because of insufficient evidence and the lack of credible testimony,said Andrew Chang, director-general of the MOFA's Department of African Affairs, at a regular press briefing. The Taiwanese fishing boat Jui Yin and the 35 people on board, including three Taiwanese nationals -- the captain, the first mate and one crew member -- were detained over a year ago by Mauritius police on murder charges after two frozen corpses were discovered in the vessel's freezer. Chang said the Foreign Ministry's representative office in South Africa had visited the three many times and provided necessary assistance to them during the trial and was glad to see that the case had come to a happy ending for the crew members. The trial was not the only case related to a Taiwanese fishing boat off Africa's southeastern coast that the ministry has been monitoring. Taiwanese fishing boat CT7-0266 MV Chi Jing No. 3 sent out a warning signal May 28 that it was being chased by an unknown ship in the Indian Ocean southeast of Madagascar, according to Chang. The boat, with four Taiwanese nationals, 33 Chinese, one Indonesian and four Filipinos on board, was told not to stop by its company in Taiwan, he added. Chang said the Foreign Ministry immediately reported the situation to the International Maritime Bureau Piracy Reporting Center in Kuala Lumpur and the U.S. Navys Fifth Fleet Bahrain headquarters and later learned that the unknown ship was a revenue cutter belonging to French Reunion, an island situated about 680 kilometers east of Madagascar. The revenue cutter was chasing Chi Jing No. 3 because the Taiwanese vessel did not apply for a permit to pass through the economic zone of Reunion, but the cutter gave up after a day-long chase because it was smaller than Chi Jing No. 3, Chang said. The entire incident was a misunderstanding. However, the Foreign Ministry would like to urge all Taiwanese deep-sea fishing boats to apply for permits when passing through other countries' economic zones and to navigate along the permitted route in order to avoid a similar situation,Chang said. Though this is an isolated incident, the MOFA hopes that it will not happen again because things like this will harm the image and credibility of not only our ships but also our country, he added. 