Owner of Oleg Naydenov pays $1 million bail
MOSCOW. Jan 17 (Interfax) - The owner of the trawler Oleg Naydenov, which has been detained by the Senegalese authorities, has paid a $1 million bail for the vessel, Alexander Savelvyev, the head of the pubic relations center at Russia's fisheries agency Rosrybolovstvo, told Interfax.
The bail was paid at the beginning of this week, he said.
"From the point of view of international maritime law, all necessary procedures have been completed and there are no obstacles impeding the release of the trawler and its crew," Savelyev said.
The trawler is now in the military port of Dakar, he said.
Savelyev said the decision to release the vessel still has to be made by the Senegalese Fishing Ministry, adding that it is difficult to predict when such a decision can be made. "We have been waiting for it for three weeks now," he said.
The Oleg Naydenov trawler was detained by Senegalese servicemen on January 3 in the Atlantic Ocean, 46 miles off the shore of Guinea-Bissau. The crew of the ship is comprised of 62 Russian citizens and 23 natives of Guinea-Bissau. Their detention was carried out without an explanation of the reasons behind it and the vessel was escorted to the military port of Dakar.
The Senegalese authorities claim that the Russian boat was fishing illegally in the economic zone of Senegal, while according to the Oleg Naydenov's captain, the trawler was in the zone of Guinea-Bissau. Russia is preparing to file a lawsuit with the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea in Hamburg.
Russia's fisheries agency Rosrybolovstvo said that it felt that the incident was related to the growing competition for biological resources on the western coast of Africa.
