SAINT PETERSBURG: Russia on Tuesday put 30 crew members of a Greenpeace protest ship in prisons in Saint Petersburg, after moving them from the Arctic Circle city of Murmansk where they have spent weeks in jail amid growing international concern.
The move to possibly milder and more comfortable conditions in Russia’s second city came amid an apparent intensification of global pressure on Russia over the detention of the crew from 19 different countries, who have spent over six weeks in Murmansk.
The Russian prison service transported the prisoners in a special carriage attached to a regular passenger train, which arrived in a train station in Saint Petersburg on Tuesday afternoon.
A column of prison service trucks then drove away from the station.
According to Greenpeace, six of the 30 have been sent to Kresty prison on the banks of the Neva River. Three more men are in Saint Petersburg’s detention centre Number Four while four women have gone to detention centre Number Five. The organisation was still confirming where the other activists are being held.
AFP
