MOSCOW, January 17 (RIA Novosti) – The owner of a Russian trawler that was seized by Senegal on suspicion of illegal fishing has paid a $1 million fine to release the vessel, a Russian state fisheries spokesman said Friday, signaling a possible end to a dispute that has ensnarled relations with the West African nation for two weeks.
Documents to release the Oleg Naidenov trawler are in order, and the ship should be set free shortly, said Alexander Savelyev, a spokesman for Russia’s Federal Fisheries Agency.
“We’re expecting the decision of [Senegal’s fisheries minister] any minute now,” Savelyev said.
The Oleg Naidenov, which is owned by the Russian company Feniks, has been in custody in the port of Dakar since it was seized by Senegalese border guards off the coast of Guinea-Bissau on January 4 for allegedly fishing in Senegal’s exclusive zone.
The ship’s captain, Vadim Mantirov, has denied wrongdoing, insisting that his vessel was fishing legally in waters belonging to Guinea-Bissau.
The captain has also claimed that his ship was damaged while in custody.
In a letter to the Russian government that was made available to the Prime news agency on Friday, Mantirov said that a Senegalese fishing boat had rammed into his vessel’s hull during a towing maneuver in the Dakar port.
Mantirov said he was declaring a protest to protect the ship’s crew and owners from expenses resulting from the dent, which he estimated at 60 centimeters (2 feet) high and 47 centimeters (1.5 feet) wide.
Earlier reports by Prime on Friday cited a diplomatic source as saying that Senegalese lawmakers had ordered the vessel’s release, but that the country’s fisheries minister was holding up the process.
The trawler’s seizure has incensed Russian officials, who said that the West African nation gave insufficient reason for detaining the vessel and called the move an act of economic warfare.
Russia also criticized Senegal’s treatment of the ship’s crew, believed to comprise 62 Russians and about 20 Guinea-Bissau nationals. A medical team confirmed that at least two crew members and the ship’s captain were beaten by border guards during the seizure of the vessel. The crew has also been forced to stay on board for the last two weeks despite complaints about a lack of food and water.
The Russian-flagged vessel has been caught fishing illegally in Senegalese waters before. The Greenpeace environmental group busted the Oleg Naidenov for the violation in February 2012 and put it on a blacklist of vessels accused of poaching in West African seas.
Russian officials claimed that the ship’s detention was prompted by Greenpeace, an allegation that the director of the environmental organization’s Russian branch dismissed as “strange.”
