Russian website picks up signal from missing freighter Arctic Sea
Monday, August 17, 2009 at 10:15PM The mystery surrounding the whereabouts of the missing freighter Arctic Sea took a new twist yesterday afternoon when it was reported that its tracking system had been broadcasting signals off the coast of France.
Sovfrakht, a Russian maritime web site, said the signals could be traced to the Bay of Biscay, near the port of La Rochelle. They were reportedly detected around 8.30am yesterday, but the website said it could not confirm whether the Automatic Identification System equipment was still on the ship itself.
The Maltese-flagged vessel was reportedly seen on Friday off the northern coast of Cape Verde in the Atlantic. But the sighting could not be confirmed and was later denied by Russia's ambassador to Cape Verde. The 4,000-tonne vessel was meant to arrive in Béjaïa in Algeria with its cargo of around £1m worth of timber on 4 August, but it is unknown what became of it following its last official recorded position off northern France on 30 July. The ship passed through the English Channel on 28 July on its way from Finland.
Previously, the ship's 15-strong Russian crew had reported that they had been boarded on 24 July in Swedish waters by up to a dozen masked men. The crew said the men left 12 hours later after tying them up, questioning them about drugs and beating them.
It has been suggested that the ship has been boarded by pirates or that it is the subject of a commercial dispute. There have also been claims that the vessel is carrying a "mystery cargo" of arms or drugs, but these were denied by the ship's owners.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/aug/16/missing-ship-arctic-sea-piracy
Reader Comments (1)
This smells fishy and they admit they don't know if the tracking device is still on the ship! What was on the ship? Why was it stolen? There was something of importance on that ship!!! If nukes were on board from a crashed sub that allegedly didn't have nukes, the k-141 Kursk, you can bet a false flag event is about to take place!
Investigative journalist, Wayne Madsen, suggests that NATO Secretary General Rasmussen wants to bring Finland and Sweden into the organization, and the “Arctic Sea” scandal may be a way of achieving this.
“We have this jurisdictional battle now between the Finnish police and the Swedish police, and we have NATO getting involved,” Madsen says. “And maybe this is a way to embarrass these two nations because we are being told that they’ve dropped the ball.”