MOSCOW, January 22 (RIA Novosti) – A Russian trawler detained in Senegal for more than two weeks on suspicion of illegal fishing will be free to leave later on Wednesday, the ship’s owner said.
Feniks, the company that owns the Oleg Naidenov trawler, paid a $1 million deposit to secure the vessel’s release from the port of Dakar.
“We have received all the documents required to leave the port. We are now waiting for a tugboat and a maritime pilot. They are to be provided within a couple of hours,” Yuri Parshev, the head of Feniks, told the Prime news agency.
The trawler has been in custody in 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 captain of the Oleg Naidenov, which was carrying 62 Russians and 23 Bissau-Guinean crew members, insists his vessel was fishing legally in waters belonging to Guinea-Bissau.
Parshev said on Tuesday that the Oleg Naidenov was costing Feniks 1 million rubles ($30,000) for every day it spent moored at dock, and that total damages to the company amounted to 19 million rubles ($565,000).
