The decision to transfer the multi-national crew of the Greenpeace vessel “Arctic Sunrise” to St. Petersburg is done in order to make the process of interpretation and defense counsel easier, ITAR-TASS reports, citing a source in the Investigative Committee.
The transfer will probably start this week, although the date is still unknown, the source said.
“Unfortunately we don’t have more info than what the press release says”, Leon Varitimos from Greenpeace says to BarentsObserver. “The authorities are not obliged to inform family members or lawyers about the details of a move. Neither do we know why are people are being moved”, Varitimos said, adding that they only knew that the activists are still in the detention center in Murmansk today.
On September 18, Russian border guard soldiers seized the Arctic Sunrise and its crew of 30 people from 18 countries. The crew members were initially charged with piracy after some of them tried to climb Gazprom’s Prirazlomnaya oil rig in the Pechora Sea.
The piracy charges, punishable by a jail term of up to 15 years, have been replaced with charges of hooliganism, which have a maximum punishment of seven years.
