A court in Russia has charged 18 of the 30 activists from the Greenpeace ship Arctic Sunrise, who were arrested last month, with piracy. Fourteen of the activists were charged with piracy on Wednesday, the Greenpeace press service told ITAR-TASS on Thursday.
The other 16, including four who had already been charged similarly, were on Thursday morning brought to the investigation department in the city of Murmansk in northern Russia from their places of detention. The icebreaker Arctic Sunrise, under the flag of the Netherlands, Sep 18 sailed to the Russian energy giant Gazprom's drilling rig Prirazlomnaya and the Greenpeace activists on board the ship tried to board the drilling rig. Border guards of the Federal Security Service in Murmansk region stopped the activists and towed the ship to the port of Murmansk. A criminal case for piracy was filed. leninsky court in Murmansk had ordered arrest of all those detained for two months at request of prosecutors. According to Greenpeace press service, lawyers and interpreters have been provided to all those arrested. The lawyers would also appeal the court ruling on behalf of all of them, it said. Greenpeace lawyer Mikhail Kreindlin said piracy charges were "completely unfounded, arbitrary and illegal".