St. Petersburg court frees Arctic Sunrise chief engineer on bail
ST. PETERSBURG. Nov 20 (Interfax) - A court in St. Petersburg has decided to release Arctic Sunrise chief engineer Mannes Ubels of the Netherlands on bail, Greenpeace said on Twitter on Wednesday.
Previously, Arctic Sunrise captain Peter Willcox of the United States and activists Alexandra Harris of the United Kingdom and Faiza Oulahsen of the Netherlands were released as well. So far, St. Petersburg courts released four Arctic Sunrise activists on Wednesday. Four more activists are waiting for their cases to be heard.
It was reported earlier that the Kalininsky and Primorsky district courts in St. Petersburg released 12 people on bail from the detained Arctic Sunrise vessel owned by Greenpeace. They are Sini Saarela of Finland, Francesco Pisanu of France, Paul Ruzycki of Canada, Camila Speziale of Argentina, Cristian D'Alessandro of Italy, Denis Sinyakov of Russia, Andrei Allahverdov of Russia, Yekaterina Zaspa of Russia, David Haussmann of New Zealand, Ana Paula of Brazil, Miguel Perez Orzi of Argentina and Tomasz Dziemianczuk of Poland.
All of them were released on a 2 million ruble bail that Greenpeace pledged to cover.
The Primorsky District Court, however, extended the detention of Colin Russell of Australia for three months.
Thirty crewmembers of the Greenpeace vessel Arctic Sunrise were detained by Russian border guards in the Pechora Sea on September 19 while trying to hold a protest against the oil extraction activities on the Prirazlomnaya oilrig. The environmentalists were taken to Murmansk, where the Greenpeace activists were arrested for two months. The environmentalists were transferred to detention facilities in St. Petersburg on November 12.
