Eight suspected hijackers of cargo ship Arctic Sea arrested by Russian authorities
The cargo ship that disappeared in the English Channel was hijacked and its crew ordered to sail to Africa, Russia said today.
A group of eight armed men stormed the Arctic Sea in Swedish waters and took control of the vessel, Anatoly Serdyukov, the Defence Minister, said.
The announcement is the first confirmation of reports that the vessel was boarded on July 24, shortly after it left port in Finland carrying timber worth $1.3 million.
Mr Serdyukov said that the eight hijackers were still on board with the 15-man crew when the Russian navy and air force intercepted the vessel 300 miles off the Cape Verde Islands west of Senegal, at 1am Moscow time yesterday (10pm Sunday BST).
The crew was freed without a shot being fired and transferred to an anti-submarine ship, the Ladny, for interrogation before being transported back to Moscow. Mr Serdyukov said that the eight hijackers – two Russians, four Estonians and two Latvians – were in detention on the Ladny.
He told President Medvedev that the ship had been approached by the hijackers in a high-speed inflatable boat in the Baltic Sea late at 11pm on July 24. The attackers claimed that their boat was malfunctioning and boarded the Arctic Sea, whose crew they took hostage at gunpoint.
They ordered the ship’s captain Sergei Zaretsky, 50, to set course for West Africa, although Mr Serdyukov did not say what the ultimate destination was. The crew was forced to disable the ship’s navigation equipment.
The minister did not say what the attackers’ motives were or why they had chosen this particular vessel for an act of piracy in European waters that is unprecedented in modern times. There has been intense speculation that the Arctic Sea was carrying smuggled arms or drugs.
The announcement is the first explanation of how the vessel came to be more than 2,000 miles off course from its original destination of Algeria. It was found almost three weeks after it disappeared.
Russia’s envoy to Nato, Dmitri Rogozin, added to the sense of intrigue yesterday by telling the Itar-Tass news agency that the media had been given deliberately misleading information “which did not allow them to calculate the true actions of the Russian forces”.
He said that there had been intensive exchanges of information with Nato forces, which had enabled the Russian navy to seize the ship and save the crew.
The Portuguese navy first reported a sighting of what it thought was the Arctic Sea in international waters off Cape Verde on Friday night. A navy source described the situation then as “very delicate and sensitive”, saying: “This is not a question of search and rescue, it is a political and police decision.”
The Maltese-registered ship had left Finland on July 22 bound for Algeria. It made contact with British coastguards at Dover on July 28 but went missing after it passed Penzance on July 30.
Its Finnish owner reported final contact with the crew on August 1 but the ship failed to dock as planned in Algeria three days later. Mr Medvedev ordered warships and submarines from Russia’s Black Sea Fleet to join the hunt for the Arctic Sea last week, telling commanders to take all necessary measures to find and free the vessel.
Fears for the safety of the crew rose after the Malta Maritime Authority said that it had received reports that the ship had been boarded by armed masked men posing as anti-drugs police in Swedish waters on July 24. That report has now been confirmed by the Russians.
The European Commission also suggested that a second attack took place off the Portuguese coast. A spokesman said at the time that the reported attacks “have nothing in common with traditional acts of piracy or armed robbery at sea”.
A group of eight armed men stormed the Arctic Sea in Swedish waters and took control of the vessel, Anatoly Serdyukov, the Defence Minister, said.
The announcement is the first confirmation of reports that the vessel was boarded on July 24, shortly after it left port in Finland carrying timber worth $1.3 million.
Mr Serdyukov said that the eight hijackers were still on board with the 15-man crew when the Russian navy and air force intercepted the vessel 300 miles off the Cape Verde Islands west of Senegal, at 1am Moscow time yesterday (10pm Sunday BST).
The crew was freed without a shot being fired and transferred to an anti-submarine ship, the Ladny, for interrogation before being transported back to Moscow. Mr Serdyukov said that the eight hijackers – two Russians, four Estonians and two Latvians – were in detention on the Ladny.
He told President Medvedev that the ship had been approached by the hijackers in a high-speed inflatable boat in the Baltic Sea late at 11pm on July 24. The attackers claimed that their boat was malfunctioning and boarded the Arctic Sea, whose crew they took hostage at gunpoint.
They ordered the ship’s captain Sergei Zaretsky, 50, to set course for West Africa, although Mr Serdyukov did not say what the ultimate destination was. The crew was forced to disable the ship’s navigation equipment.
The minister did not say what the attackers’ motives were or why they had chosen this particular vessel for an act of piracy in European waters that is unprecedented in modern times. There has been intense speculation that the Arctic Sea was carrying smuggled arms or drugs.
The announcement is the first explanation of how the vessel came to be more than 2,000 miles off course from its original destination of Algeria. It was found almost three weeks after it disappeared.
Russia’s envoy to Nato, Dmitri Rogozin, added to the sense of intrigue yesterday by telling the Itar-Tass news agency that the media had been given deliberately misleading information “which did not allow them to calculate the true actions of the Russian forces”.
He said that there had been intensive exchanges of information with Nato forces, which had enabled the Russian navy to seize the ship and save the crew.
The Portuguese navy first reported a sighting of what it thought was the Arctic Sea in international waters off Cape Verde on Friday night. A navy source described the situation then as “very delicate and sensitive”, saying: “This is not a question of search and rescue, it is a political and police decision.”
The Maltese-registered ship had left Finland on July 22 bound for Algeria. It made contact with British coastguards at Dover on July 28 but went missing after it passed Penzance on July 30.
Its Finnish owner reported final contact with the crew on August 1 but the ship failed to dock as planned in Algeria three days later. Mr Medvedev ordered warships and submarines from Russia’s Black Sea Fleet to join the hunt for the Arctic Sea last week, telling commanders to take all necessary measures to find and free the vessel.
Fears for the safety of the crew rose after the Malta Maritime Authority said that it had received reports that the ship had been boarded by armed masked men posing as anti-drugs police in Swedish waters on July 24. That report has now been confirmed by the Russians.
The European Commission also suggested that a second attack took place off the Portuguese coast. A spokesman said at the time that the reported attacks “have nothing in common with traditional acts of piracy or armed robbery at sea”.
