Has Piracy Spread to Europe's Waters? Update 8: 'Pirates' Welcomed Onboard

Eight alleged hijackers of the Russian ship the Arctic Sea were in fact welcomed on board after being rescued in the Baltic Sea, a lawyer claims. Konstantin Baranovsky, who represents one of the eight men, said the alleged pirates were testing a navigation system on a small boat.

They were then rescued after getting into difficulties, Mr Baranovsky said. The eight were arrested in mid-August by the Russian navy and taken to Moscow to face kidnapping and piracy charges.

According to Mr Baranovsky, the eight men were welcomed on board the Arctic Sea, as they were Russians, like the ship's crew. They were offered vodka, and allowed to use the ship's gym. There were many more parties after that first night as the boat continued its voyage from the Baltic Sea through the English Channel and out into the Atlantic Ocean, Mr Baranovsky said. That is where the alleged pirates were eventually arrested.

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Has Piracy Spread to Europe's Waters? Update 7: Russian Denial

Russia denies mystery ship was carrying missiles to Iran

Russia angrily denied media reports over the weekend that a freighter seized in what was dubbed the first act of piracy in northern Europe in over 100 years was in fact carrying a secret cargo of missiles to Iran.

"This is absolutely not true," said Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov on Tuesday, reacting to claims made in last week's Sunday Times (London) and elsewhere that the Arctic Sea, the ship allegedly hijacked on July 28 off Sweden's coast and released on Aug. 16 by a Russian Navy ship, was secretly carrying S-300 antiaircraft missiles to Iran. The ship's official cargo was timber bound for Algeria.

Nevertheless, rumors continue to swirl around the seizure of the Arctic Sea, not least because Russia has not been forthcoming about the results of its investigation, centering around eight men who it says hijacked the ship and are now in Russian custody.

"All will become transparent, and I hope that everyone will be convinced that the rumors you refer to are absolutely groundless," Mr. Lavrov told reporters.

Earlier this month, Mikhail Voitenko, a Russian journalist who specializes in maritime reporting, fled abroad after he said he received threats for his reporting that ship was likely being used by corrupt officials to carry weapons. Mr. Voitenko broke the story of the ships initial "disappearance" from the Baltic Sea.

Speculation that Russia's official version of events, that the pirates were simply hoping to ransom the crew and the Arctic Sea's low-value cargo, is unlikely to abate. Russia has not so far provided international access to the crew or alleged hijackers. Following the ship's capture, 11 of the Arctic Sea's crew and eight alleged hijackers were flown to Moscow. Russia dispatched three Il-76 jets – some of the largest 'heavy-lift' planes in Russia's Air Force – to return them, an odd choice when one plane would have sufficed.

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Has Piracy Spread to Europe's Waters? Update 6: Questions Remain

On Wednesday, Russian state news agencies quoted a Defense Ministry official as saying that eight hijackers who were detained on Monday had threatened to blow up the ship and its crew if a ransom of $1.5 million wasn't paid. He said the hijackers, who appear to have taken control of the ship shortly after it left Finland, and the crew continue to be questioned.

Russia says it has four Estonians, two Latvians, and two Russians in custody. They were arrested "during the operation to liberate the Arctic Sea," which was carried out by a Russian warship. The ships 15-man crew are all Russian nationals.

"Extortion and hijacking – that's where we are concentrating our investigation ... and that's the only thing we have factual evidence for," says Jan-Olof Nyholm, a detective superintendent for Finland's National Bureau of Investigation. But doubts about this version of events continue to swirl.

Political analysts and maritime security experts remain skeptical that the hijackers were merely interested in the crew or the ship's cargo – a load of lumber bound for Algeria.

"Russia says Arctic Sea hijackers demanded ransom, threatened to blow up ship", Christian Science Monitor, 8/19/09.

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Has Piracy Spread to Europe's Waters? Update 5: Yes It Has

Russia Says It Holds Hijackers of Cargo Ship

The Russian Defense Ministry said Tuesday that the cargo ship Arctic Sea, which seemed to vanish without a trace off of Portugal last month, prompting fears of piracy in Europe, had been hijacked as it traversed the Baltic Sea. The crew of a Russian anti-submarine ship freed the Arctic Sea’s 15 Russian crew members 300 miles from the Cape Verde islands in the open Atlantic on Monday, arresting the eight hijackers without firing a shot, Anatoly E. Serdyukov, Russia’s defense minister, said on Tuesday, according to the Kremlin Web site. The hijackers were identified only by their nationalities: four Estonians, two Latvians and two Russians.

The Defense Ministry says the hijackers commandeered the 4,000-ton ship off the coast of Sweden and traveled through heavily monitored European waters to the open Atlantic without being detected, in what would appear to be an act of piracy practically unknown in modern Europe.

While clearing up some of the fog enveloping the affair, however, the Kremlin’s statement left a number of questions unanswered: Why would the supposed hijackers seize a small freighter carrying only about $2 million in timber? Were the hijackers actually seeking something of greater value, drugs, weapons or nuclear materials, perhaps? Why was it first reported that the hijackers had boarded the vessel in the Baltic Sea, bound and beaten the crew and then left as mysteriously as they had arrived?

“Russia Says It Holds Hijackers of Cargo Ship”, NY Times, 8/18/09.

Speaking to Al Jazeera, John Burnett, a maritime security consultant, said: " [It's] an extraordinary mystery, it's probably an unsolved mystery until the Russian government decides to let us in on the big secret. This is no piracy, and no common hijacking, it's nothing like we've seen in Somalia, you don't hijack a ship that is carrying $1.3m of timber, and a ship that isn't worth very much. If it was captured, I would use the word captured not hijacked, by some forces then it was done so for a reason, far beyond normal hijacking or piracy. The talk in the London maritime community is that it was carrying something dangerous or something very nasty. It could have been anything from a CBRN (chemical, biological, radiological and nuclear) device, or pieces of something like that. It came from Kaliningrad, it could have had one object or several objects, and then been loaded with timber."

“Russia arrests ship 'hijackers'”, Al Jazeera, 8/18/09.

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Has Piracy Spread to Europe's Waters? Update 4: Arctic Sea Located

Russia Finds Missing Merchant Ship Near Cape Verde Islands

The Russian-crewed freighter that sparked a high-seas mystery when it disappeared nearly three weeks ago has been found by a Russian naval frigate off the West African coast, the country's defense minister said Monday. The Arctic Sea's 15 crew members, last heard from July 28, were alive and now aboard the navy ship, Defense Minister Anatoly Serdyukov said in a meeting with President Dmitry Medvedev shown on national television.

Serdyukov said the crew was not under armed control when the ship was found around 2100 GMT (5 p.m. EDT) Sunday about 300 miles away from the island nation of Cape Verde. The crew are all alive and healthy. He did not give details about what happened to the ship, saying the full story could be made known later Monday.

Adding to the mystery, Russia's envoy to NATO, Dmitry Rogozin, told the ITAR-Tass news agency Monday that bogus information was deliberately provided to news media "which did not allow them to calculate the true actions of the Russian forces."

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