The court has thereby met a request from the captain, Kawabata Takashi, who had admitted illegally fishing in Russian waters, to revise the previous ruling to forfeit the ship, without a court trial. Takashi and his ship will be free after he pays a fine of $13,800, lawyer Denis Skuratov said.
The Zuisho Maru 38 was seized January 21 off the Kunashir Island, one of the four disputed Kuril Islands, carrying over 1.8 metric tons of fish, including cod, Alaska pollack and flounder. The crew did not have a permit to fish inside the three-mile territorial zone of Russia.
The Russian Coast Guard has stepped up patrols in the disputed territory as Japanese fishing boats have been frequently intruding in the waters around the Kuril Islands in recent months.
Last August, a Japanese fisherman was shot dead near the Kuril Islands when Russian border guards fired warning shots at his boat that refused to stop. The incident strained relations between Russia and Japan, which have contested the ownership of the Kurils for over 60 years in a dispute that has kept the two countries from signing a formal peace treaty after World War II.
