Ghost Ship – Transcript
REPORTER: Nick Lazaredes
Navy Day in Kaliningrad - home of Russia's Baltic fleet. Patriotism and military might are on display today, but there's a darker side to this very strategic port.
Kaliningrad is notorious as a smuggling hub for illicit cargo, and it's a transit route favoured by Russian gun-runners. And it was here, in July last year, that the MV 'Arctic Sea' pulled in for a series of secret modifications and repairs before setting out on its fateful voyage.
NEWS REPORT: Contact with the cargo ship, the 'Arctic Sea' was lost almost two weeks ago. The vessel was bound for Algeria with a cargo of timber from Finland.
NEWSREADER: The mystery of the ‘Arctic Sea’ is no closer…
When Russian TV first reported the 'Arctic Sea' missing, rumours were already swirling that vessel's cargo may have been something much more deadly than timber.
PAULA SLIER, RT CORRESPONDENT: 'Time' magazine is running a piece where it quotes numerous experts who suggest Israel intercepted the ship as it carried secret weapons to the Middle East.
In a bid to find answers to this mystery of the high seas, I travelled, not only to Russia, but alsoLatvia, Estonia, Malta, Belgium and Thailand. Russian authorities say the 'Arctic Sea' left here inKaliningrad on 16 July, with 15 crew members on board.
On July 22, in Jakobstad, Finland, a load of timber was added to its hold. The intended destination for the timber was the port of Bejaia in Algeria. But, instead, at 3:00am on Friday, July 24, the ship is boarded off the coast of Sweden by up to a dozen armed and masked men.
MARIA LONEGARD, DIVISION HEAD, SWEDISH POLICE: Men dressed in black, with vests with 'Police' written on the back. They boarded the ship and were quite abusive to the crew, and claim to be narcotic traffic police and searched the ship. Then they left the ship without taking anything.
Whoever boarded the ship certainly weren't Swedish drugs police. The real Swedish police say that these men were fluent in English, but there's been no sign of them since. Rather than seek help for the crew, the ship's Russian owner merely orders the vessel to keep sailing. Russian investigative journalist Julia Latyinina finds the decision to resume course rather odd.
JULIA LATYININA, JOURNALIST: And it seems very strange because, of course, if something like this happens to the vessel, which would have go to any port to dock there and something should be done to the crew.
But Latyinina says the crucial question is, why it took four days for the incident to be reported to Swedish police?
JULIA LATYININA: The most important thing here is dates, because they don't add up. Because we have 24th on which the vessel was hijacked, we have 28th on which it was announced.
On that very day, July 28, this completely routine encounter with the 'Arctic Sea' was recorded by the British maritime authorities as she passed through the English Channel.
DOVER COAST GUARD: Arctic Sea, this is Dover Coast Guard. Good afternoon to you sir. Can we have your last port of call please? Over.
ARCTIC SEA: My last port of call is Jakobstadt, Finland.
DOVER COAST GUARD: And your destination sir, Bejaia?
ARCTIC SEA: Yes, that is correct.
DOVER COAST GUARD: How many persons on-board?
ARCTIC SEA: 15 Crew members on board.
DOVER COAST GUARD: Any dangerous cargo sir?
ARCTIC SEA: No, there is no dangerous cargo on board.
But also no mention of the mysterious boarding party that came and went or that the crew may have been assaulted. Less than a day later, all contact with the 'Arctic Sea' is lost.
MIKHAIL VOITENKO, MARITIME JOURNALIST: It's a modern vessel, with all the equipment on board. It cannot sink without any trace, without alarm signals.
Maritime journalist Mikhail Voitenko is the man who broke the story of the 'Arctic Sea's disappearance.
MIKHAIL VOITENKO: ……had on board the kind of cargo we don’t know anything about, some secret cargo. But some third party… was ready to prevent this shipment by all means possible.
Voitenko made the decision to go public with his fears for the missing ship after being contacted by concerned family members. Voitenko was worried that if an attempt was made to cover up whatever may have been on board, the crew might also disappear.
MIKHAIL VOITENKO: In Arctic Sea story, I claim from the very beginning – I say loud and clear – to Russian authorities – “ I’m interested in crew only – you promise me that nothing will happen to crew, I promise you I will cooperate with you. But they didn’t ask me.”
Voitenko has now fled to Thailand. Not only was his offer of assistance ignored, but late one night he received a credible call saying that his life was in grave danger.
MIKHAIL VOITENKO: There are many, many contradictions in what pirates are saying, in what crew are saying, in what the law enforcement is saying.
Forced to respond after Voitenko's revelations, the Russian Government announced that five destroyers and two nuclear submarines had been sent to search for the missing vessel - an extraordinary search effort for a ship carrying timber, and Voitenko smelled a rat. He began looking for the lost ship's satellite tracker - the Automatic Identification System, or AIS.
MIKHAIL VOITENKO (Translation): I went to AIS website and saw the signal. Two hours later the signal disappeared, but by then I have already posted the news about it
Hours after Voitenko posted news of the signal coming from the Bay of Biscay, French authorities made a peculiar announcement. The French declared they had discovered Russian navy signals coming from the same location. Voitenko says this is clear evidence of a cover-up.
MIKHAIL VOITENKO (Translation): It proves that the Russian military ships had a physical contact with the vessel a long time before they announced liberation of the vessel by Russian military and that all the time after this the vessel was sailing under control of the Russian military, while everybody was still thinking that it was hijacked.
Three weeks after the incident off the Swedish coast, Russia's President, Dmitry Medvedev, consults with his defence minister in what many regard as a highly staged event.
DMITRY MEDVEDEV, RUSSIAN PRESIDENT (Translation): I asked you to sort out the situation with our ship, so what can you report on the Arctic Sea?
ANATOLY EDOUARDOVICH, RUSSIAN DEFENCE MINISTER (Translation): As per your instructions we searched for this dry-cargo vessel and today at 1 am Moscow time it was located 300 miles off the Cape Verde Islands.
In fact, the Cape Verde coast guard had spotted the vessel days earlier, but this had been denied by Russia.
From Cape Verde the eight supposed hijackers were flown back to Russia, along with the crew. Although the alleged piracy had taken place in Swedish territorial waters, Russia claimed sole jurisdiction, and laid piracy and kidnapping charges.
MIKHAIL VOITENKO: I don’t believe they hijacked the vessel. I don’t believe it absolutely.
DMITRY ROGOZIN, RUSSIAN AMBASSADOR TO NATO (Translation): He is basically a man who knows nothing, I just want to give Mr Voitenko one piece of advice, “Drink less vodka.” Vodka is a dangerous product, it must be consumed in tiny amounts.
Astonishingly, Russia’s ambassador to NATO, Dmitry Rogozin, freely admits that his government released false information as events unfolded.
DMITRY ROGOZIN (Translation): We knew it was no longer in the Biscay Bay. We knew exactly it was already near the African coast. Naturally what was said publicly was necessary for the public opinion – to keep the situation under control.
PAVEL FELGENHAUER, MOSCOW DEFENCE EXPERT: Cape Verde is still a kind of Russian subsidiary nation to a large extent. And, so, this is the only place in the Atlantic where Russia could operate from a land base and no-one’s gonna ask them a lot of questions.
Moscow defence expert Pavel Felgenhauer is dubious of the Russian claims that they only caught up with the missing ship near Cape Verde.
PAVEL FELGENHAUER: Why would that ship be moving into the only place in the Atlantic where the Russians have an operational air base, and a foothold on land, and a connection to use very heavy transport planes - any kind of activity? Why would the hijackers move in that direction? I don’t know - it looks very strange and very, very fishy.
JULIA LATYININA: This was the kind of 'operatsia prikitiya', as we say it in Russian - a cover-up.
After checking satellite tracking records, Julia Latyinina says that on previous voyages by the 'Arctic Sea' there were more mysterious movements.
JULIA LATYININA: It seems that the 'Arctic Sea' was in the habit of going to this particular Algerian port, and it was in the habit of switching off AIS immediately after it went through Gibraltar.
She also has no doubts about the nature of the ship’s cargo.
JULIA LATYININA: These guys were delivering Russian arms. Who was exactly in charge, we don’t know.
If there were Russian arms aboard the 'Arctic Sea', one theory is it could have been the S-300 missile system. Pavel Felgenhauer says, in 2009, Russian weapons traders had almost delivered on an S-300 deal with Iran.
PAVEL FELGENHAUER: The deal was going through, everything was already signed and agreed, all the paperwork done, and it was frozen at the last moment by personal decision by national leader Prime Minister Vladimir Putin.
And Felgenhauer claims these traders are still trying to make a sale, even if they have to resort to smuggling.
PAVEL FELGENHAUER: Because there are still people in Russia who want to make a lot of money on the S-300 sale to Iran, and some maybe still hope that they will get that money.
Russia’s NATO representative, Dmitry Rogozin, says that’s nonsense.
DMITRY ROGOZIN (Translation): Russia is not a banana republic, and we strictly control arms exports. I can’t imagine a situation that against our own rules and against all logic now, in the 21st century we could sell or supply weapons which could be used against Israel. I don’t believe it. It’s a joke.
The port of Valletta, Malta, is officially the 'Arctic Sea’s home port, flying their 'flag of convenience'. The ship eventually docked here in September 2009, a full month after the Russian interception.
MATTHEW VELLA, EDITOR ‘MALTA TODAY’: I think definitely there was reticence on the part of the Russians to actually see the Maltese taking a more major role in the investigation.
Matthew Vella, editor of 'Malta Today', says that the Maltese maritime authorities initially launched their own investigation into the 'Arctic Sea’s disappearance, but days later suddenly backed off. Once the Maltese officials eventually inspected the ship, they found nothing suspicious.
MATTHEW VELLA: At the end of the day, all the Malta Maritime Authority had to do was carry out the basic checks, safety precautions, and that’s it.
REPORTER: It was almost like a rubber stamp, really.
MATTHEW VELLA: Exactly. Again, I don’t think it had any reason to cause any trouble, as it were, to ask any embarrassing questions about what was happening on this ship.
Despite our repeated attempts, both the Malta Maritime Authority and the Minister for Transport sharply refused our requests for an interview. In the words of the press secretary to the Minister for Transport, the 'Arctic Sea' remains a “sensitive issue”.
OMAR AKHEMEDTOV, LAWYER (Translation): All the proof which was initially gathered by the prosecution were gathered in violation of the law.
In a crowded office in central Moscow, I’ve come to meet lawyers for some of the Latvian and Estonian nationals accused of the piracy. According to lawyer Omar Akhmedtov, the evidence put forward by prosecutors is flimsy at best.
OMAR AKHEMEDTOV (Translation): All they had was indirect evidences and testimonies of the vessel crew. That’s it! The crew members also gave their testimonies in a rather special way – they have been isolated from the society for quite a long time.
JULIA LATYININA: The initial commandos have disappeared from the vessel very early…
Julia Latyinina not only questions the Russian prosecutors’ case against the men being held in Moscow, she actually believes the 'Arctic Sea' was boarded twice - the first time by special forces posing as Swedish police.
JULIA LATYININA: We can be sure that these were commandos, and we can be sure, well practically sure, that these were Israeli commandos.
So, who were the alleged pirates arrested on board the 'Arctic Sea'?
From Moscow I travelled 500km west to Malpils, in Latvia. I’ve come to meet Lada Lepins, the wife of one the accused, Vitaly Lepins.
LADA LEPINS (Translation): Somebody was setting somebody else up, pirates from where? Have you seen Malpils? There are pirates in Somalia but pirates here? Pirates from Malpils? No.
Tallinn, Estonia, is another unlikely home for three of the accused, the first pirates from the Baltic Sea in around 500 years.
I’ve come to meet Alexey Bartenev. His brother Dmitry is another of the accused being held in a Russian prison.
ALEXEY BARTENEV: Everybody was shocked. We were shocked – and we couldn’t believe it that he could participate in such a hijacking story.
Part of Russia’s case against Dmitry is that he undertook military-style training in Latvia. But his brother says this was impossible, as Dmitry was already in trouble with the Estonian authorities, and reporting to police daily.
REPORTER: Do you know what he was doing? What he was up to?
ALEXEY BARTENEV (Translation): He was in Tallinn. All the time, he was in Tallinn. Without a doubt - It’s 100% because I saw him every day, at nights – I knew where he was. He wasn’t able to just leave the country without permission. He couldn’t go anywhere.
REPORTER (Translation): but did he say he had a new job?
ALEXEY BARTENEV (Translation): Yes, when he found a new job he said so and left. He got a release.
That job, according to Alexey, was to provide security for some sea cargo. His brother was recruited by this man, Dmitry Savins, just a few days before the incident off Sweden. Back inMoscow, the lawyers for the other men tell the same story.
OMAR AKHEMEDTOV (Translation): You see, according to my client Vitaly Lepins, Savins has painted this operation as a secret service – run operation. He was told that their duties would be in the area of accompany sea cargo ships. They were given uniforms saying “Police” and warned not to conduct any illegal or violent actions against the crew.
NEWSREADER: So the 'Arctic Sea' - is it all about Israeli secret services?
Suspicions continue to surround the arrested so-called 'pirates'. Many seasoned observers wonder whether they were just pawns in a complex intelligence operation.
PAULA SLIER: They say that there’s no other country that is more willing and more able to carry out a hijacking of this nature. It was professionally done, and it was very well done. And there’s another question that also remains unanswered, a question that some people are asking - why did the Israeli President, Shimon Peres, visitRussia a day after the whole hijacking happened?
Just weeks after the ship was discovered, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu also paid an unscheduled visit to Moscow. When his visit was finally revealed, Israel refused to comment. Pavel Felgenhauer says this meeting may have been critical for Israel’s security.
PAVEL FELGENHAUER: It was a kind of secret visit organised at short notice. The actual discussion we, of course, we are not privy to, but the issue was clear - it was Russian arms sales to Iran, Russian arms sales to Syria, and what Israel can give Russia in exchange for not going through with some of those arms sales.
Out of immediate danger, Mikhail Voitenko continues to question what really happened to the MV 'Arctic Sea'.
MIKHAIL VOITENKO: That means the whole story about pirates hijacking was just a ….just a fake – an illusion, yeah.
Illusion or not, there are still many secrets of the 'Arctic Sea' yet to be revealed.
GEORGE NEGUS: Eat your heart out, James Bond! Nick Lazaredes filming and reporting. We approached the Israeli Government in relation to Nick’s report, and their response was “no comment”. Meanwhile, in Russia, investigations into the mysterious hijacking have been completed, and two of the apparent hijackers have apparently received long jail terms. And there’s plenty more on this week’s reports on our website, including an interview with Nick on the intriguing ‘Arctic Sea’ mystery.
Reporter/Camera
NICK LAZAREDES
Producer
ANGUS LLEWELLYN
Field Producer
ILYA KUZINATSOU
Researcher
DONALD CAMERON
Editors
NICK O’BRIEN
ROWAN TUCKER-EVANS
Translations/Subtitling
ELENA MIKHAILIK
SIIRI IISMAA
Original Music composed by
VICKI HANSEN
Footage courtesy of Russia Today, Vesti and NTDTV
21st November 2010