The Prosecutor General’s Office sent a case against six people accused of hijacking the Arctic Sea freighter last year to the Arkhangelsk regional court on Friday, the prosecutor’s office said on its web site.
The ship, which set sail from Kaliningrad to West Africa with a cargo of timber, disappeared in July 2009 off the coast of Sweden and was rediscovered and boarded by the Russian Navy off Cape Verde a month later. The incident prompted speculation that the vessel might have been carrying a secret cargo such as arms for Iran.
The suspected pirates, Alexei Andryushin, Dmitry Bartenev, Igor Borisov, Alexei Bulev, Vitaly Lepins and Yevgeny Mironov, face up to 15 years in prison if convicted. All have denied wrongdoing.
(MT)
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