A journalist who broke the story of a Russian cargo ship apparently hijacked by pirates has fled Russia fearing for his life, the Guardian has reported. Mikhail Voitenko, editor of the online maritime bulletin Sovfracht, said he had left the country after receiving a menacing late-night phone call.
The newspaper reported: [Link]
Voitenko said an unidentified man called him on the night of September 1 and warned him he was "stepping on the heels of some serious people". Speaking from Istanbul, where he is now in hiding, Voitenko said he was bluntly informed that these "guys are out for revenge. I was told: 'They are very unhappy with you. But they don't want unpleasantness'." Voitenko said the man urged him to leave Russia as rapidly as possible. Speaking by phone to the Guardian, he said he was intending to stay out of the country until "things calmed down".
Voitenko was the first person to report on the disappearance of the Arctic Sea, which mysteriously vanished after passing through the Channel on 28 July, carrying a £1.1m cargo of Finnish timber. Russia says hijackers seized the ship four days earlier in international waters near Sweden. It says its navy recovered the boat on 17 August in the Cape Verde islands, off the west coast of Africa.
Voitenko, the Associated Press said in a report, had speculated that the ship might have been carrying a secret cargo, possibly weapons. There has been mounting speculation that the freighter was intercepted by Israel to prevent the delivery of missiles or nuclear materials to Iran or Syria. [Link]
The Arctic Sea, which left Finland on July 21 with 15 Russian crew members and a cargo of timber, failed to arrive in Algeria on Aug. 4 as scheduled. The ship's signal had disappeared off France's coast in late July.
Russia sent naval vessels Aug. 12 to search for the ship in the Atlantic Ocean. Days later, the government said it had found the Arctic Sea off West Africa and arrested eight hijackers.
But many baffling aspects of the freighter's journey, including a reported attack by masked men in Swedish waters, remain unexplained.
Russia took control of the Maltese-flagged freighter, which it says is now sailing toward a Russian port. The crew members were brought to Moscow for questioning and have been barred from speaking publicly.
