MOSCOW. Dec 13 (Interfax) - The lawyer of Oleh Melnychuk, the captain of the Ukrainian tugboat Yany Kapu, which was detained in the Kerch Strait for illegally crossing the Russian border, says he has declined to sign a non-disclosure pledge brought to him by investigators.
"As soon as investigators of the Federal Security Service [FSB] had said hello, they demanded that I sign a pledge on non-disclosure of investigative information. I told them I could not sign such a 'serious' document because I did not know what information exactly I would be prohibited from disclosing. The investigator was unable to concretize his demand," lawyer Edem Semedlyayev wrote on social media.
The captain "identified himself as a prisoner of war in accordance with the Geneva Convention, pleaded not guilty, and refused to testify" on Wednesday, Semedlyayev wrote.