bobdina
09-16-2009, 11:44 PM
Arctic Sea ‘arms ship’ has been cruising off West African coast
The mystery of the hijacked cargo ship allegedly carrying missiles to Iran deepened yesterday when it emerged that, far from limping back to a Russian port as the Kremlin had claimed, the vessel had been cruising around the Canary Islands.
In the latest twist to a plot featuring clandestine weapons, secret agents and pirates, Russia announced that the Arctic Sea was once again thousands of miles from where she was meant to be.
Recaptured by the Russian Navy from Baltic “pirates” a month ago, the vessel was supposedly heading for the Black Sea port of Novorossiysk. Instead, she will dock at Las Palmas in Grand Canary today and be handed over to maritime officials from Malta, where the ship is registered. The ship’s Finnish owner, Solchart, said that it had been repeatedly denied access to the Arctic Sea and to crew members on board. Viktor Matveyev, Solchart’s chief executive, claimed that staff had been threatened and the company driven into bankruptcy.
“The number of questions for which we have not received any answers is growing by the day,” he said on Solchart’s website. Mr Matveyev said that the Arctic Sea had been kept “all this time” in international waters off Grand Canary.
The decision to keep the vessel at sea, away from public view, heightened suspicions that she was carrying illegal arms, despite Russian denials. The Arctic Sea is apparently being towed by a tug and needs repairs, although there was no mention of any damage in the operation to free her fifteen-man Russian crew from the eight alleged hijackers. The captain and three crew stayed on board while the rest were flown to Moscow.
A lawyer for one of the alleged hijackers claimed yesterday that prosecutors had offered them a deal to admit their guilt. Konstantin Baranovsky told Interfax news agency that his client considered the Russian state “an interested entity” in the case.
“If the Russian Federation admits that the suspects are innocent, the country will bear responsibility as per maritime law,” the lawyer said. “If the country hijacked a ship and it was not a pirate ship, it’s an international scandal. It’s almost a war.”
Mikhail Voytenko, the editor of an online maritime bulletin that broke the news of the hijacking, fled Russia after receiving threats. “The only thing I am sure of is that these so-called pirates didn’t hijack the ship,” he said, speaking from Thailand.
“I think it’s clear that there was a shipment of something that somebody did not like. They hijacked the vessel and either disposed of this shipment or collected proof and presented it to Russia,” Mr Voytenko said.
Investigators insist that they found nothing on the ship other than her stated cargo of timber, worth $1.7 million (£1 million), destined for delivery to Algeria. The Arctic Sea left Finland on July 22 and was allegedly boarded by an armed gang in Swedish waters two days later.
She was intercepted on August 16, 300 miles from the Cape Verde islands off the West African coast — 2,500 miles off course. Russia later admitted that its navy had shadowed the vessel all along.
Amid reports that Mossad had taken an interest in the ship’s suspected cargo — Russian missiles bound for Iran — Binyamin Netanyahu, the Israeli Prime Minister, made a secret flight to Moscow last week
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/europe/article6837581.ece
The mystery of the hijacked cargo ship allegedly carrying missiles to Iran deepened yesterday when it emerged that, far from limping back to a Russian port as the Kremlin had claimed, the vessel had been cruising around the Canary Islands.
In the latest twist to a plot featuring clandestine weapons, secret agents and pirates, Russia announced that the Arctic Sea was once again thousands of miles from where she was meant to be.
Recaptured by the Russian Navy from Baltic “pirates” a month ago, the vessel was supposedly heading for the Black Sea port of Novorossiysk. Instead, she will dock at Las Palmas in Grand Canary today and be handed over to maritime officials from Malta, where the ship is registered. The ship’s Finnish owner, Solchart, said that it had been repeatedly denied access to the Arctic Sea and to crew members on board. Viktor Matveyev, Solchart’s chief executive, claimed that staff had been threatened and the company driven into bankruptcy.
“The number of questions for which we have not received any answers is growing by the day,” he said on Solchart’s website. Mr Matveyev said that the Arctic Sea had been kept “all this time” in international waters off Grand Canary.
The decision to keep the vessel at sea, away from public view, heightened suspicions that she was carrying illegal arms, despite Russian denials. The Arctic Sea is apparently being towed by a tug and needs repairs, although there was no mention of any damage in the operation to free her fifteen-man Russian crew from the eight alleged hijackers. The captain and three crew stayed on board while the rest were flown to Moscow.
A lawyer for one of the alleged hijackers claimed yesterday that prosecutors had offered them a deal to admit their guilt. Konstantin Baranovsky told Interfax news agency that his client considered the Russian state “an interested entity” in the case.
“If the Russian Federation admits that the suspects are innocent, the country will bear responsibility as per maritime law,” the lawyer said. “If the country hijacked a ship and it was not a pirate ship, it’s an international scandal. It’s almost a war.”
Mikhail Voytenko, the editor of an online maritime bulletin that broke the news of the hijacking, fled Russia after receiving threats. “The only thing I am sure of is that these so-called pirates didn’t hijack the ship,” he said, speaking from Thailand.
“I think it’s clear that there was a shipment of something that somebody did not like. They hijacked the vessel and either disposed of this shipment or collected proof and presented it to Russia,” Mr Voytenko said.
Investigators insist that they found nothing on the ship other than her stated cargo of timber, worth $1.7 million (£1 million), destined for delivery to Algeria. The Arctic Sea left Finland on July 22 and was allegedly boarded by an armed gang in Swedish waters two days later.
She was intercepted on August 16, 300 miles from the Cape Verde islands off the West African coast — 2,500 miles off course. Russia later admitted that its navy had shadowed the vessel all along.
Amid reports that Mossad had taken an interest in the ship’s suspected cargo — Russian missiles bound for Iran — Binyamin Netanyahu, the Israeli Prime Minister, made a secret flight to Moscow last week
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/europe/article6837581.ece