The ships of the Black Sea Fleet will deliver to investigators material evidence with Arctic Sea

A detachment of ships of the Black Sea Fleet, headed by the Lada guard vessel, after the liberation of the Arctic Sea off the coast of West Africa and his escort to Malta, where the ship was transferred to the owner, is returned to Russia.

According to RIA Novosti , a source in the Black Sea Fleet, the ships will reach Sevastopol and Novorossiysk at the end of next week. As noted, they are being taken for the Investigative Committee at the prosecutor's office, which conducts an investigation in the case of the capture of Arctic Sea with pirates, material evidence from the dry cargo.

"Ladnaya" and the vessels of the Black Sea Fleet will be held in the middle of next week of the Black Sea Straits of Bosphorus and Dardanella. Then the "Ladnaya" and the tugboat will go to Sevastopol, the Tanker "Iman" will take a course in Novorossiysk with material evidence. It is planned that the "Lada" will arrive in Sevastopol on November 13. A little later, the Iman tanker will arrive in Novorossiysk.

As reported the day before, all sailors with Arctic Sea finally returned to Arkhangelsk to their families. On Monday evening, the sailors flew home after a three -month absence. Captain Sergey Zaretsky, senior mechanic, second mechanic and boatswain remained on the ship until the arrival of the replaced crew. Eleven crew members returned to Arkhangelsk after investigative actions in Moscow.

Last week, the SCP of the Russian Federation lifted the arrest imposed at the request of the investigation on the Arctic Sea by the Basmanny District Court of Moscow to speed up the transfer of the dry cargo of the Maltese side. Last Thursday, the ship was transferred to the Malta’s naval authorities.

According to the head of the Finnish operator of the Solchant dry cargo, Viktor Matveev, on November 5, the ARCTIC Sea Sea is planned. So far, they expect the arrival of equipment, which was previously delivered to Las Palmas. According to Matveev, the ship will fly on a flight to fulfill obligations to the forest industry complex of Finland.

Despite the withdrawal of the arrest from the vessel, the criminal case was not terminated in connection with the seizure of the dry cargo. The Investigative Committee under the prosecutor’s office of the Russian Federation opened the case on August 18 under paragraph “A” of part 3 of Article 126 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation (abduction of a person committed by an organized group). The article provides for imprisonment for up to 20 years. Eight citizens of Russia, Latvia and Estonia, accused of capturing the vessel, were arrested during the release of the crew.

The term of imprisonment of "pirates" was extended until February. Currently, the suspect of the seizure has also been charged under Part 3 of Article 227 - “Piracy”, which provides for 10 to 15 years of imprisonment in case of guilt.

The history of the disappearance and liberation of Arctic Sea

Recall that the ARCTIC SEA dry cargo ship with a team of 15 Arkhangelsk sailors was supposed to arrive in Algeria with a load of lumber. The dry truck left Finland on August 4. The connection with the dry cargo was interrupted on July 28.

As the Naval Bulletin Internet magazine reported, on July 24, the ship was attacked by pirates near the Swedish Island of Oland in the Baltic Sea. According to the magazine, unknown, approaching the boat and “in broken English”, introduced themselves as police officers, tied the crew, searched the ship, after which they left it without taking anything with them.

After a mysterious attack, the ship continued its journey to Algeria. The path from the Baltic to the Algerian coast was supposed to pass through the North Sea, then through the La -Channel Strait and the Bay of the Bay - to the Atlantic Ocean, from where through the Gibraltar Strait - to the Mediterranean Sea. However, Arctic Sea disappeared without a trace somewhere along the coast of Portugal in the Atlantic, on the way to Gibraltar.

After the long searches and mobilization of all the ships of the Black Sea Fleet located in the area of ​​the disappearance of the vessel, the Lada guard ship on August 17 near the islands of Green Cape was released by the carriage crew. 11 members of the ship’s team and 8 “Pirates were delivered to Moscow on August 20 on aircraft of the Russian Air Force.

At the beginning of September, the dry cargo was towed into the Spanish Las Palmas, where, according to the SCP, on September 17, the carrier was transferred to the shipowner, but this did not happen. A few days later, the dry load in tow left this area. Later, the Russian Federation proposed towing a dry carrier to the Algerian port, since the Algerian company was listed as the recipient of the wood that the Arctic Sea was transported, but Algeria authorities refused to give permission to visit the ship in the port.

By the end of October, the dry truck stood in the open sea east of Gibraltar, because Malta was not going to accept Arctic Sea, under the flag of which the carbon carrier was swimming. At the end of October, a replaced crew arrived in Malta, and the ship was nevertheless transferred to the naval authorities of the island.

The arrested pirates continue to insist that they - ecologists lost in the sea, whom the crew of Arctic Sea forcibly kept on the ship. According to the lawyer of one of the detainees, the captain of the dry carrier promised to give the Ecologists gasoline so that they could sail to the shore, but they would not wait for gasoline, and therefore they had to stay on the ship.

One of the arrested - Russian citizen Dmitry Bartenev - filed a motion to initiate a criminal case against the commander of the ship of the Russian Navy "Lada", which participated in the liberation of the Arctic Sea. According to Bartenev, he and the rest of the “ecologists” voluntarily switched from the board of Arctic Sea to “Ladnaya”, but they were immediately unreasonably detained, and soon brought to the Moscow pre -trial detention center Lefortovo. Bartenev believes that in this way the composition of the crime under Article 126 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation (human abduction) is seen in the actions of the captain of the "Lada".