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Russia admits mystery ship may have had suspect cargo
By Alexander Osipovich (AFP) – 3 hours ago
MOSCOW — Top Russian officials admitted Wednesday that a cargo ship hijacked under murky circumstances in the Baltic Sea may have been carrying a suspicious cargo, after initially playing down such reports.
Speculation has been raging that the Arctic Sea — a ship that was seized by pirates near Sweden last month and vanished for weeks before being recaptured by the Russian navy — may have held weapons or even nuclear materials.
The Maltese-flagged ship with a crew of 15 Russian sailors was officially heading to Algeria with a cargo of timber.
But Moscow’s top investigator, Alexander Bastrykin, cast doubt on that in a newspaper interview.
“We do not rule out the possibility that the Arctic Sea transported something other than wood,” Bastrykin told the official government daily Rossiyskaya Gazeta.
“This is why we detained the crew, as we must figure out if any one of them was involved in those events,” added Bastrykin, who heads the investigative committee of Russian prosecutors.
The detention of 11 Arctic Sea sailors by Russian authorities and media reports that they have not been allowed to communicate with their families have fuelled speculation of a cover-up.
Bastrykin pledged that “in a week and a half, we will give complete information” about the incident.
Separately, the head of the Russian military said that Moscow did not know if the ship was carrying any cargo other than wood.
“We do not know what it is carrying, we only know there is wood and whatever else it is carrying must be clarified by the investigation,” Nikolai Makarov, chief of Russia’s general staff, told reporters during a visit to Mongolia.
Makarov added that it was unclear why the alleged hijackers had bothered to seize the ship in an elaborate operation in one of Europe’s busiest shipping lanes.
“The motive of the hijacking is simply not very clear,” he said.
Two Russians, four Estonians and two Latvians are now jailed in Moscow on suspicion of hijacking the Arctic Sea, after being arrested when the Russian military recaptured the vessel off the Cape Verde islands.
The doubts expressed by Bastrykin and Makarov were in contrast to previous comments by Russian officials who insisted that the vessel was not carrying anything sensitive.
Moscow’s ambassador to NATO, Dmitry Rogozin, has said the Arctic Sea was only carrying timber and dismissed speculation that the ship was carrying weapons as “tales.”
Russian officials have said that a preliminary search of the ship after it was recaptured found nothing suspicious, but have vowed a more thorough search when it reaches the Russian port of Novorossiisk.
Authorities in Finland, which the ship departed from on July 23, have said it was not carrying any radioactive cargo.
Still, the Arctic Sea mystery has revived fears — dramatized in Hollywood movies of the 1990s — that nuclear arms smuggled from the former Soviet Union could fall into the hands of terrorists of rogue states.
Russia has usually dismissed such concerns and argued that its nuclear arsenal is secure.