Russia begins charging Greenpeace activists: official

Russian investigators on Wednesday began charging a group of Greenpeace activists detained in the northern city of Murmansk after a protest against Arctic oil drilling, an official said.

“The investigation began the process of bringing charges against them,” a spokeswoman for the Investigative Committee in Moscow told AFP.

She could not say whether the 30 activists from 18 countries are being charged with piracy or a lesser crime.

On Tuesday an unnamed source told the Interfax news agency that Russia will bring piracy charges against the group, a crime that carries up to 15 years in jail.

President Vladimir Putin last week raised hopes that the activists would face lesser charges when he said that they “are not pirates”, but had nonetheless broken international law by protesting close to a Russian oil rig.

The crew of Greenpeace’s Arctic Sunrise icebreaker was detained in September for two months.

They are now in pre-trial detention centres in the cities of Murmansk and Apatity, nearly 2,000 kilometres (1200 miles) north of Moscow and above the Arctic circle.