Last night I had a problem with a Bounty Hunter gunboat named "Alex.Godwin" or "Alex.Godwyn" in the Texas system at approximately 0600 GMT. I was flying a Hessian Odin VHF named "IKV_QIn_vagh-6" with a Freelancer tag & Mercenary ID which is allowed per the tech chart. My RP with it is as a spy for the Liberty Navy, I am top rep with them & good neutral with their Guard as well. I am Neutral with the Hessians & their Guard & usually travel back & forth between Omega-54 or Dresden & back to Texas to Battleship Mississippi with whatever Military Intelligence I have gathered. For the last few days I had been doing missions for the Navy via Battleship Mississippi to bring my Navy Guard rep up a little more. I was on my back from one of those missions with a hold of Rogue pilots when the Bounty Hunter challenged me. I came to a stop as ordered & turned my ship to face my weapons away from the Bounty Hunter on my own so as to not appear as a threat. As I was trying to explain to him what i was doing there he kept firing on me dropping my shields. I am a slow typist & when I managed to get out what I was doing he kept saying he didn't care what I thought I was doing. I told him if he doubted that I was in good standing to escort me to a Navy vessel or the Liberty Navy Guard Virginia system so I could prove my reputation bonafides he stated that he didn't care & stated that as far as he was concerned that it was not a proper RP & while I was still at a halt with my weapons posing no threat to him he destroyed my ship. My ship was then returned to my last dock which was the Battleship Mississippi. In my hold was a spare ONYX code-name that I had been attempting to find a Navy fighter craft to donate it to, another player might have heard me in New York or Texas over the last couple days, hopefully that was not an influence on him. This same Bounty Hunter had been stopping cargo ships supposedly carrying contraband & stating that as a Bounty Hunter he had all the rights to do so. He also made a statement in system chat that he had made a nice profit of 600k credits on one of the loads he had someone drop. While our conversation was going on I attempted to contact a BHG Core player & see what was going on he seemed to drop offline after saying as far as he knew there were no BH in Texas.
You met an independant player not associated with the BHG| faction. Did you SS the conversation? Bringing it up here in the forums leads to a messy flame war but if there was wrong doing the SS's can be handed to the admins to properly handled. I'm not to sure what's the story on Hessien relationship between Hessiens and Liberty is like. Sometimes the "enemy of my enemy is my friend" doesn't always apply.
While I cannot comment on the incident with your Hessian fighter specifically, given that I work closely with Alex.Godwyn, I can tell you that every single Transport, Liner and other Cargo Ship that we have stopped and either destroyed, or confiscated goods from, has indeed been either:
A: Carrying Contraband Ala (Cardamine, Slaves, Synth Marijuana, Counterfeit Software)
B: Violating the terms of the Embargo on non human trade goods being brought to Rheinland from Liberty.
Also, if you'll read the Bounty Hunter ID, you'll notice that it does grant it's holders the rights to:
Demand cargo, credits or a 'roleplay demand' from Smugglers and Criminals (and as embargo breakers are defined as criminals, we are within the right to demand their cargo), Oh, and there is also a Bounty on Embargo breakers in Liberty, so we are also within the right to be operating there and doing what we've been doing.
Again, I won't get into the situation that happened with you and he, however I'm sure it's some form of misunderstanding.
But I'd appreciate however if you at least don't bring other people's situations, who's details you're not completely aware of into this in an attempt to make your 'case' look better, or something.
Thank you.
Edit: Also, I didn't post to start an argument or anything, but simply out of the facts that the player in question isn't here to vouch for himself at the moment, and that I've been working closely with him in Texas for the past few days.