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Strange voyage of the Arctic Sea

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Anchor Lisa Mullins speaks with the BBC’s Gabriel Gatehouse in Moscow about the case of the “Arctic Sea,” the Russian-crewed cargo ship that was reportedly hijacked in Swedish waters at the end of July. The ship was apparently discovered off Cape Verde yesterday, and Russian authorities say they’ve arrested eight hijackers.

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LISA MULLINS: I’m Lisa Mullins and this is The World, a co-production of the BBC World Service, PRI, and WGBH in Boston. The strange tale of the ship Arctic Sea is getting a little bit stranger. The Russian-crewed cargo vessel disappeared last month. It was some place between Finland and its destination Algeria. The ship reappeared yesterday and now Russia says it has arrested eight hijackers. The BBC’s Gabriel Gatehouse has been following the story and he says the Arctic Sea was reportedly seized in Swedish waters.

GABRIEL GATEHOUSE: What apparently happened was that a little dingy – a speedboat – raced up to the side of this ship and said it was in trouble. When the crew brought the people in the speedboat on board they threatened them with guns and made them sail down towards Africa with their navigational equipment switched off. Now this certainly would account for the reason why this ship disappeared off everyone’s radar for over two weeks until yesterday. A Russian navy vessel discovered it 300 nautical miles off the Cape Verde Islands which are off the coast off West Africa so quite some way off course. The Russians, as you mentioned, have now said they’ve arrested eight people on suspicion of hijacking. They’re investigating a criminal case but we don’t know who these eight people were; what they wanted. We don’t even know where they were arrested? Were they arrested on board the same boat? Or where they arrested somewhere else?

MULLINS: Now we don’t know this because the Russians haven’t apparently talked about it but is there anything known about why these people are in custody? What they did when they were on board the ship and where the crew is right now?

GATEHOUSE: Well the original supposition was that these eight people who were arrested on suspicion of hijacking were the same people who boarded the boat in Swedish waters on the 24^th of July. But Russia’s Ambassador to the Cape Verde Islands said earlier today that when the Russian Navy found the Arctic Sea only the crew was on board. They were not being guarded by anyone. So that seems to contradict that. Now as to who the hijackers were, we have no idea about that either. The Russian authorities are releasing information very selectively and slowly and the details are really raising more questions than they’re answering. What we can do is look at what was supposedly on board this ship. Now officially it was carrying timber to a value of just under $2 million. Two million dollars is a significant amount of money but it’s not the largest amount of money you might find on the high seas so we have heard all kinds of other rumors as to what might or might not have been on board this ship.

MULLINS: Is it unusual for a ship like this to be carrying timber from a place on the Baltic Sea to as far down as Algeria? I mean is that unusual? And also is it unusual to be hijacked in the Baltic?

GATEHOUSE: I don’t think it’s unusual for a ship from the Baltic to be carrying timber. There’s a lot of timber production that goes on around there but certainly hijacking ships in the Baltic is very unusual. This has led some people to suggest that perhaps it wasn’t a case of straightforward piracy but perhaps some kind of commercial dispute. Perhaps some kind of organized crime was involved. There’s even been suggestions of an insurance scam.

MULLINS: Gabriel you’re in Moscow right now. I wonder how this story is being reported there and what the questions are in Moscow in the circles there around what happened.

GATEHOUSE: Well it’s being watched very closely here of course not least because the crew of 15 were all Russian sailors. Now when the Russian defense minister came out yesterday and said that all the sailors had been rescued off this ship, that they were safe and well on board now a Russian naval vessel of course there was considerable relief. But the relatives of these people, most of whom are based in Arkhangelsk in northwestern Russia, don’t know yet, or at least we haven’t been told yet, when these sailors might be coming home.

MULLINS: There are so many questions that remain to be answered as you’ve said Gabriel. Is part of the interest in this because of the knowledge of the secrecy of the Russian government in the past? In other words, is that adding to some of the suspicions around what might have been transpiring on board the ship?

GATEHOUSE: I think that’s probably feeding into it. As you say the Russian authorities aren’t always the most forthcoming. They have a reputation for not always divulging the whole truth. If we think back to incidents like the sinking of the Kursk, that submarine off northern Russia, where information was very slow in forthcoming. And of course when there isn’t any concrete information that gives rise to speculation and rumor which is certainly what’s going on now.

MULLINS: Alright thank you very much. Gabriel Gatehouse in Moscow. Thank you.

GATEHOUSE: A pleasure as always.

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