Messolongi, Greece ? For weeks, the creaky Balkan Sky languished off the Turkish coast waiting for orders to set sail for Sudan with tons of explosives. Then came a telex from the ship’s Irish owner: Forget Africa and divert the cargo to a remote Greek port.

But Capt. Anatoliy Baltak of Ukraine, who gave the account Wednesday, claimed he and his crew had no idea they were breaking the law when they sailed into Greek waters and straight into a team of waiting commandos who had been tipped off about the ship by a NATO anti-terrorist task force.

“I didn’t think I was doing something illegal,” Baltak said in his first public comments on the vessel’s nearly six-week voyage. “It didn’t even cross my mind that terrorism was an issue.”

Baltak’s chronology given after a nearly 90-minute hearing before an investigating magistrate could answer some questions about the ship and its cargo. But new mysteries also emerged.

Baltak said he had no explanation for the detour to Greece and believed the owners had notified Greek authorities.

“The ship owner is responsible for everything,” Baltak told reporters.

That explanation, however, was not enough for Magistrate Olga Arslanoglu.

After a closed-door hearing, Baltak and his crew of four Ukrainians and two Azerbaijanis were ordered jailed pending a full investigation.

“Neither the ship managers nor the ship owners have appeared until this moment to tell us what they want or even tell us who they are,” Merchant Marine Minister Giorgos Anomeritis said.

The crew faces charges of entering Greek territorial waters without informing officials of its load of 750 tons of ammonium nitrate-based explosives and detonators. The Baltic Sky, which took the cargo May 12 in Tunisia, was seized Sunday.

Baltak identified the vessel’s “real owners” as Cristian McNulty of Ireland. Shipping documents say the vessel is controlled by a company in the tiny Pacific Island nation of Marshall Islands.

Money, or the lack of it, has emerged as a possible reason for the ship’s strange course with the ship’s owner or manager perhaps holding out for more cash to deliver the cargo, some officials speculated.

Tunisia said the ship was legally loaded, and Sudan gave Greece paperwork showing the cargo was ordered by a legitimate firm, the Khartoum-based Mutakamila Company for Chemicals and Development Ltd. The company claims the explosives are for industrial use and wants them returned.