RUSSIA SAID yesterday it had found a merchant ship that went missing last month after being attacked in the Baltic Sea, ending an international hunt that had sparked speculation of piracy, secret cargoes and spies.
But the Kremlin released few details of how the vessel had been located, saying only that the bulk carrier, the Arctic Sea, had been found in the Atlantic Ocean near the Cape Verde islands, leaving the details of how it disappeared shrouded in mystery.
Anatoly Serdyukov, Russia’s defence minister, told President Dmitry Medvedev in televised comments that the ship’s 15-man crew was safe and was being questioned about the incident.
“The crew have been transferred to our anti-submarine ship, the Ladny, where they are being questioned to clarify all the circumstances of the disappearances,” he said.
He added that the full story surrounding the disappearance of the ship could be revealed later.
Since the Arctic Sea disappeared, reportedly carrying a €1.3 million cargo of timber, maritime experts have been confounded by what could have happened.
Rumours circulated that the ship had been targeted by pirates or had been carrying a secret cargo of drugs or even nuclear materials – speculation that was denied by the ship’s owners.
The first sign that something strange had happened to the Arctic Sea came when Swedish police said its crew had reported being tied up and beaten by 10 men who boarded the ship off Sweden in the early hours of July 24th, three days after it had set sail from Finland, bound for Algeria.
The masked men had reportedly claimed they were looking for drugs, before leaving on an inflatable boat.
The ship then made its last radio contact when it passed through the English Channel on July 28th. Russian naval vessels joined the hunt for the ship last week as mystery deepened over its whereabouts.
Conflicting reports surfaced over the weekend, with experts first saying the ship had been seen near Cape Verde and then that its tracking device had been detected off the coast of France.
Dmitry Rogozin, Russia’s ambassador to Nato, said yesterday that Nato forces had joined the search. However he declined to give any details of how the ship had been found or who had seized it.– Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2009