Arctic Sunrise case may be officially closed early 2014
ST. PETERSBURG. December 26. KAZINFORM - After two months in a Russian jail facing charges of piracy, later reduced to hooliganism, all activists were granted bail last month, Itar-Tass informs.
The criminal case against foreign activists from the ecological movement Greenpeace, who were arrested on criminal charges for participating in the September campaign at the Prirazlomnaya oil platform in the Arctic, will finally come to a close in early 2014, Andrey Suchkov, a lawyer for the detained environmentalists, said on Wednesday.
"I suppose this will be in the first working days of the next year," he said, adding that in order to close the case, it was necessary to execute a large number of documents, including certificates of acceptance and transfer of the activists' personal things and their ship, The Arctic Sunrise, which would be released after that.
Greenpeace announced on Tuesday that the Russian authorities had begun to drop the charges set against the Greenpeace activists. The move is part of a new amnesty law that came into effect last week in Russia. Amnesty notifications will allow the foreign activists to obtain transit visas necessary to leave Russia.