MOSCOW. Aug 21 (Interfax-AVN) - The men who hijacked the Arctic Sea cargo ship claimed to be members of environmental organizations and that they used no weapons while boarding the vessel in the Baltic waters.
In an exclusive report shown by the Rossiya television channel from aboard the Ilyushin-78 military transport aircraft, the hijackers were said to believe they were "peaceful environmentalists arrested by mistake."
When asked which environmental organization they belonged to, one of the suspected hijackers, named as Andrei Lunev, said "I do not know, some private company."
"We were trying to escape from a storm, boarded on the night of (July) 25, and when the storm was behind us it turned out that the captain chose not to fill us with petrol, so we could not leave," Lunev said.
When asked what kind of weapon they had, Lunev said: "There were no weapons."
The Rossiya reported noted that the "environmentalists" had tattoos all over their bodies. Later it turned out that most of the detained "nature advocates" had a criminal past and several convictions, the television reporter said.
On the plane the pirates kept repeating they did not hijack the vessel and were not holding the crew captive.
When asked about their relations with the team, Lunev said they were good and friendly.
Meanwhile, the vessel's crewmembers, who flew to Russia on another aircraft, showed the television crew traces from the plastic handcuffs and ropes on their legs. "It has been one month since all this happened, but the traces remain," said one of the sailors.
On Thursday, the eleven crewmembers and eight hijackers were delivered to the Chkalovsky airfield near Moscow from where they were sent to the Lefortovo prison. If there is no evidence that the sailors played a part in the hijacking, they will be let go, a source close to the investigation told Interfax.