2018 Carnival Legend brawl caused by stepping on someone’s shoe!

A Sydney court has heard that a cruise ship brawl that ended with more than a dozen family members booted off the vessel was sparked after one of them stepped on a passenger’s shoe.
The Daily Mail report says that the Zakhour family and some of their friends were escorted off the Carnival Legend after it was forced to stop at port in Eden, New South Wales, on February 16, 2018, with shocking footage capturing a group of passengers engaged in a bloody fist fight – check the video below.
Three members of the Zakhour family are now suing the cruise company claiming security violently assaulted them before falsely imprisoning them onboard.
Carnival has filed a defence at the County Court drawing up a list of allegations against the family, alleging members hurled racist abuse at security, lashed out at staff when their supply to booze was cut off, and sparked a brawl with other passengers, the Herald Sun reported.
Court documents allege that the son of Zaki Zakhour, 52, stepped on a passenger’s shoe two days before the brawl broke out and that Mr Zakhour then became engaged in a heated argument with the passenger before assaulting them the following day and it is alleged Mr Zakhour grabbed the passenger by the throat while other family members threatened to kill him.
Mr Zakhour said in his statement of claim that when security intervened he was punched in the head and kicked on the ground and he alleges the chief of security yelled at him: ‘I’m going to f***ing kill you and your son’.
Carnival Cruise Line has defended the actions of the security staff saying Mr Zakhour and his son were handcuffed before they were taken to separate rooms adding that staff had been acting under the orders of the captain and employed ‘a reasonable use of force’ to ensure the safety of its other passengers, with the cruise company claiming the Zakhour family and their friends were involved in several incidents in while on the cruise ship and that they allegedly took out their anger at staff when their booze privileges were revoked and pushed a bouncer after they were refused entry into a nightclub.
Carnival Cruise Line claims family members threatened passengers near a pizzeria and choked a security guard and told staff to ‘be ready for a wrestle’.
The matter will go to trial next year.


Image Credit: The Daily Mail
Edited by John Alwyn-Jones, Cruise Editor