Pirates of the Baltic: The Mysterious Case of the MV Arctic Sea
Posted: Sunday, September 06, 2009
by Joel Kontinen
http://joelkontinen.blogspot.com/
In late July, the MV Arctic Sea, a Maltese merchant ship with a load of timber worth 1.8 million US dollars, set sail from Jakobstad, Finland, for Algeria. Within a few hours, on the morning of 24 July, however, the media reported that eight or ten pirates wearing police uniforms had taken the entire crew of 15 Russian seamen captive near the Swedish island of Gotland.
After the Arctic Sea passed through the Strait of Dover on July 28, the British coast guard lost radio contact with the ship. Nothing was heard of the ship for over two weeks. Rumours began circulating. The Arctic Sea was carrying cruise missiles, it was said. The supposed destination was Iran.
On August 14, the ship was seen near Cape Verde. The Russians reported that it had never been lost. Russian naval vessels of the Black Sea fleet had followed the Arctic Sea all the time but for security reasons this was not revealed to the public.
Understandably, this announcement gave rise to more speculations. Why would Russia bother to send warships to look for an old ship loaded with timber?
The crew were flown back to Russia and were warned not to speak to the press. Some of the pirates were caught. This did not stop the speculations, however. For instance, on 6 September the UK paper Sunday Times published an article entitled "Missing channel pirate ship carried Russian arms for Iran". It suggested that Mossad had learnt of the ship's cargo and had hired Estonian and other Baltic gangsters to intercept the ship. Incidentally, Israeli president Shimon Peres had talks with his Russian counterpart Dimitry Medvedev on the very day the ship was found.
Russian journalist Mikhail Voitenko, who first reported the case and disputed the official explanation of the saga, had to flee to Turkey after receiving threatening phone calls. It seems that there is something fishy with the incident.
But since the Russian government is not known for its love of openness, rumours will probably continue to circulate. We might never know what really happened to the MV Arctic Sea and what the ship carried and where.
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Top-level comments on this article: (2 total)Intersting--I heard about the incident and thought it was strange but never new about all this drama--again, intersting article.Thanks, Steve.
Oh, my, good and very intriguing piece! There is SO much we never hear about, isn't there? MarijoYes indeed. Thanks for reading,Joel
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