Russia on Thursday charged eight suspects in the hijacking of the cargo ship Arctic Sea with kidnapping and piracy, including a man suspected of masterminding an operation that remains swathed in mystery.
The suspects are charged with seizing the ship and its Russian crew on the night of July 24 while posing as police and then holding the sailors by force, the investigative committee of Russian prosecutors said in a statement.
“Several members of the crew showed signs of bodily injury. After hijacking the ship, the suspects held the crew in separate berths, in isolation, to prevent any possibility of resistance,” it added.
While seven of the men were charged with participation in piracy and armed kidnapping, prosecutors said, an eighth has been charged with being the apparent mastermind of the operation.
“The eighth suspect has been charged with organizing the above-mentioned crimes,” the statement said.
“Their roles were set out and the plan worked out in advance. They equipped themselves ahead of time with arms to put down resistance by the ship’s crew and also masks and black clothing marked with the word ‘POLICE,’” the statement said.
The eight suspects were brought to Russia last week aboard massive military transport planes from the Cape Verde archipelago, off which the Russian navy had succeeded in regaining control of the vessel from the hijackers.
The suspected hijackers — citizens of Estonia, Latvia and Russia — have been held in detention in Moscow since they stepped off the planes under armed guard.
Numerous questions remain unanswered about the ship’s mysterious nearly month-long disappearance, and comments by top Russian officials this week fueled suspicions that the ship may have been carrying illicit cargo.
The Maltese-flagged vessel with a crew of 15 Russian sailors was officially heading to Algeria with a load of timber, but media have been awhirl with rumors the vessel may have held weapons or even nuclear materials.
Shipping experts have questioned why the hijackers would take so much time and risk over a relatively insignificant cargo, seizing the ship in the Baltic Sea in one of Europe’s busiest shipping lanes.
Eyebrows were also raised after Russia brought back crew, suspects and investigators from Cape Verde aboard three huge Ilyushin-76 military transport planes when far smaller aircraft would have sufficed.
Meanwhile, rather than heading for emotional reunions with families, the 11 crew who returned are not being allowed out of the capital and reportedly cannot discuss the events with their families on the phone.
Alexander Bastrykin, who heads the investigative committee of Russian prosecutors, said on Tuesday that the crew had been asked to stay in Moscow as “we must figure out if any one of them was involved in those events.”
This week the Russian tabloid Moskovsky Komsomolets, citing Russian security sources, said the ship was smuggling arms and that the hijackers were stooges hired by the intelligence service of an EU member state to intercept it.
Russian officials have said that a preliminary search when the ship was recaptured turned up nothing suspicious. But they vowed a more thorough search when the Arctic Sea — currently returning to Russia from African waters — reaches the Russian port of Novorossiisk in early next month.
Officials in Malta said on Thursday that they would send their own investigators to Russia to take part in the probe after Moscow agreed to the request and pledged to provide all information related to the case.
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