A Pirate, "or spy? HOPE THIS WEEK The July 23, 2009 was a day like any other in the Jakobstad port on the Gulf of Bothnia, Finland. Had just finished stowing the work of a large load of wood in the Arctic Sea, which is registered in Valetta, Malta. It was a freighter with the bridge aft and a warehouse run, like so many others. It was built in shipyards Sedef Shipyard in Istanbul, Tuqui. His 97.80 meters long, 17.33 m. Sleeve and 5.62 m. timing is not distinguished from the others. Was powered by a diesel engine can achieve a speed of 12.5 knots. After the master finds that the stowage was complete and in order (the value of goods amounted to two million euros), after stowing the two huge yellow cranes that stood out on your deck, gave orders to cast off to put forward to your next destination, Bejaia, Algeria on the Mediterranean.
was gradually shifting its 4,000 tonnes by the waters of the Baltic, the following dawn did not portend anything unusual. But something happened. It was at the time, passing through the vicinity of the Swedish islands of Gotland and Öland, they were approached by an inflatable boat with eight people on board. According to the statements after the Company would Solchart Management, Finnish firm that owns the Arctic Sea, apparently presented themselves as members of the Swedish police drug and as such came aboard. Following this first idea, strangers arrested fifteen members of the crew, all Russian nationals, even using violence against those who resisted it, searched the ship and theoretically twelve hours after they left as they came, and without any booty.
After this unexpected incident, the ARCTIC SEA continued its path toward the south and on 28 July went completely normally the Strait of Dover between France and the UK, one of the best protected areas and the world. Had a brief radio conversation with the British coastal guards who at no time found nothing abnormal, may have even spoken to a kidnapper, but there was no way of knowing. It was the last contact was maintained with the freighter. Automatic identification signal disappeared on July 30 after being detected by the beacon on the French coast from Brest to the output of the Channel, which indicates that the route continued heading southwest. The only certainty is that the boat did not cross the Channel of Gibraltar Road Bejaia port as scheduled, so the Interpol issued an abduction alert on August 3, spreading the news worldwide. Obviously failed to Algeria on August 5, the day he was expected. Despite that, firstly, they speculated about the possibility that he had sunk, it was considered to outweigh the risk that had been forced into the Atlantic as a result of a kidnapping.
Solchart Management
The shipping company, aware of the case, submitted a report to the Russian embassy in Helsinki on the disappearance of the vessel and its crew. However, the Moscow government would not notice to the Swedish authorities, in whose waters the incident had taken place until 31 July, a week later!, just the same day that Portugal coast guard said one of its planes had spotted the ARCTIC SEA near its waters. As mentioned in the media, which in those days, saturating the news with all sorts of details about the alleged kidnapping, on August 3 of the cargo insurance agency, the Renaissance Insurance Group, had received a call regarding the disappearance the ship, called for a ransom of one million euros and a half as a condition for not killing the crew and sink the freighter. However, this point was denied in the maelstrom of news that precipitate from the media in the days following.
Swedish police began to investigate and, consequently, half the world began to speculate. What at first might be a vulgar piratical act of many that have dotted human history in the sea, would become in a few hours in a spy plot worthy of the best days of the Cold War.
And why? Because apparently the light of these developments, Russian President Dmitri Medvedev attended executive order to the Russian Navy to put all necessary means, including two nuclear submarines, to free a ship, by the way, carrying timber.
On August 5 jumps to the news media that Russian nuclear submarines have been patrolling near the U.S. coast, but could confirm their shipping routes or actual patrol areas.
And it would be surprising if we thought the concern of a government by a fellow in trouble (remember that the crew was Russian) if it was not ...
... There were those who said the ARCTIC SEA earlier that summer, had landed in Kaliningrad Russian port located between Poland and Lithuania. A port which, incidentally, is under the spotlight of the international police consider it related to drug trafficking, people or weapons. It is this last point, the weapons, the target of different looks suspicious: the suspicion of the presence of missiles in the cellars of ARCTIC SEA increases and then argued the alleged statements from different sources secret services, and in fact the first journalist echoed this possibility, Mikhail Voitenko, apparently decided to go to spend a long time to Turkey stimulated by the "advice" received from, he said, high areas to which your items had bothered.
According to this hypothesis, the ARCTIC SEA would have charged an unspecified number of S-300 missiles, a weapon against Russian warplanes. This is a missile of 7.5 meters in length and 2,000 kg. weight can reach a height of 27,000 meters and a distance of up to 150 km. These weapons have allegedly been sold by former members of the Russian army to Iran and the Israeli government would fear that they were used against Air Force.
According to media in those days, the ARCTIC SEA vanished, nobody knew where, and the idea of \u200b\u200bthe presence of pirates in the An Atlantic grew exponentially, but with many detractors, causing the astonishment of all, in the end we are not in the seventeenth century also considered the possibility of sinking, but it was unlikely they would have remained afloat remains easily traceable. Another option would be the theft of goods: in this scenario, by the way the ship could have been "disguised" and arrive at a port without many controls to unload the goods and sell to the highest bidder. But the idea of \u200b\u200ban unusual load is imposed on all others. Still, nearly 20 countries came to participate in the search of Arctic Sea without getting, apparently, a conclusive result, and calculating reached even to consider the possibility that he had been kidnapped twice, once, off the Swedish coast and the other near Portugal.
In the meantime, the public jumps to the rumor of the existence of Russian nuclear submarines in navigation between 3 and 9 August, wiping out their radars certain areas of the Atlantic after the track supported by ARCTIC SEA surface units of the same nationality, the Russian Navy ends liar, a few days later, blaming journalists to publish information false.
Let us pause in the narration of the facts to make a short tour through the history of this ship. He had been ordered to be built in the year 1990 (although some sources cite the year 1992) by a company called Golden Bridge Shipping who registered in the Soviet Union. Was launched in 1992 under the name of TORM SENEGAL and registration was changed to a more convenient, Malta. During the following years was changing port record: in 1998 he changed the flag of Jamaica, months later by that of Lithuania and was renamed Jogailos there when you bought the Lithuanian Shipping based in Klaipeda. Soon after he began to manage another company, DFDS Lisco, four years later, in 2005, became the property of the Artic Sea Ltd., based in Malta, returning to have this flag, and being renamed ARCTIC SEA, going to be operated by the Aquaship Ltd, a company in Latvia in 2008 to cede the Finnish Solchart Management AB, shipping for operating the freighter at the time of the disappearance. With this unfortunate curriculum, a fevered mind anyone could think that the "pirates" hijackers "were at home.
Returning to the story. On 14 August the Government of Cape Verde said the Arctic Sea has been spotted 400 miles north of the archipelago, although that same day, a NATO spokesman said he could not reveal the location of the cargo for security. That same day he announced in the media that the Russian Navy confirmed that it has commissioned submarine and surface units and aircraft specifically equipped with the latest technology to search the freighter disappeared.
On August 15, confesses that Finnish police had demanded a ransom for the ship but had not been made public to preserve the lives of the hostages. However, the owner denied this point, however, the agency insurance had ARCTIC SEA affairs later claimed that on August 3 had received a call demanding 1.5 million euros in exchange for the lives of the crew and in the meantime, Russian officials vehemently deny reports in certain media and Internet ...
definitely informative chaos.
The next day, the Russian anti-submarine ship LADNII (Ладный) finally locates the ARCTIC SEA, marking its position near Cape Verde.
On 17 August, ARCTIC SEA was taken cleanly and without shots by special forces of the Russian Navy to 340 miles from Cape Verde, far below the original target set in the freighter. The entire crew was taken, according to some sources and as a submarine frigate LADNII others for interrogation and, the next day, the Russian government announced that they had been arrested eight pirates. Two weeks it took the Russian secret service in question to demonstrate a thorough working crew spending nearly a day to each crew member. After this time they were released.
pirates arrested and found to be 4 Estonians, Latvians 2 Russian and 2, according to Russian authorities would be tried by a court in Moscow which sparked the question of the most suspicious: Why do they have to be tried in Russia pirates dealing in European waters to a vessel flying the flag of Malta and are detained in Cape Verde? Curious.
Since the end of the operation, Russia imposed a news blackout for security. So much so, that a week after release, the crew members still were not allowed even to talk to their families. The captain and three crew were able to follow the ship to resume his trip to Algeria, but unable to contact anyone.
However, the press echoed other which contradicts the above circumstances. In the first half of September it was reported that the ARCTIC SEA would be handed over to the authorities in Malta to have this flag. The delivery would take place in Puerto de la Luz and Las Palmas in the Canary island of Gran Canaria, where he advised dock due to "bad seaworthy" and where would LADNII escorted by the corvette, and after a " Russian criminal defense team and members of the Research Committee of the Prosecutor "finish the research. And this after Moscow had been informed that the cargo would be taken to the Russian naval base Novorossiisk Black Sea. Actually, ARCTIC SEA came within about 15 miles from Gran Canaria, and in fact, the Port Authority reported that already had permits from both the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and of Defense, and was expected to arrive around 10:00 hours on 16 September to its mooring at Pier "Primo de Rivera", where they had bounded a security zone, the frigate and the tugboat that accompanied amarrarían Naval Base occupies the English Armada in the same port. Only lacked the proper permit from the maritime authorities to get into port, a purely administrative procedure. Administrative process that ultimately was not verified and ignore the reasons.
The blackout has only served to fan the flames of speculation, or suspicion, depending how you look.
This is how it has grown the hypothesis that a certain secret service, as rivals of "Deep Throat" had been heard from the burden of missiles in the Arctic Sea and would have made known to the Kremlin, which had left little doubt the Russian government, which, if the missiles had come to Iran could not be justified before the world, and on the other hand, would confirm a serious internal security problem. This would explain the operation enabled by Russia and the passivity of the authorities of all countries against whose shores passed ARCTIC SEA, ie the Nordic countries, UK, France, Portugal and Spain.
has even been suspected of kidnapping the move was engineered by a powerful secret service to the Russian authorities had no choice but to act to abort an operation that had left its international credibility to a minimum. In any case, in view of events is not easy to explain the reason for the deployment of a naval operation so impressive to simply release a ship carrying timber.
The Government of Moscow sent, we can consider, the official version. Accordingly, "the eight pirates approached the Arctic Sea in the Baltic Sea with the excuse that their inflatable boat showed some kind of breakdown, and then seized the boat at gunpoint," that contradicts the first version of fictional cops. The following navigation systems disconnected after some point to head to Atlantic Africa, all belonging to Russian organized crime. The Russian spokesman acknowledged that the authorities were aware at all times of the ship's location, but for security reasons was not made public. The minister said the pirates were reduced Serdiukov without the use of firearms and arrested, also said something rather surprising: the Arctic Sea had not been hijacked. " The preliminary examination of the researchers who boarded the ship found that the load of wood was intact and there was no trace of radiation on board, was repeated in its warehouses and had not had been any kind of missile. The Russian government made a firm promise that, upon completion of the investigation, the incident would be reported with full transparency to erase any suspicion that he had raised the issue.
As supporters of diplomacy that we are, we accept the official version, but we recognize the very disappointing. Will we ever really happened? ... The answer is written in the waves, you just need someone having the audacity to ask the right questions.
The only truth and the truth is that in the period from 28 July to 17 August 2009 wrote about the sea is a wonderful screenplay.
© Coral and Ramiro Gonzalez
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Main
digital sources consulted:
Country Journal -
http://www.elpais.com/ Journal World - http://www
. elmundo.es / Journal ABC -
http://www.abc.es/ The Journal Review -
http://www.laopinion.es/
