Ship's hijacking: misinformation helped military

The hijacking of a Maltese-registered cargo ship which was reportedly missing for two weeks, continues to be shrouded in mystery, with a European Commissioner saying this could end up being the plot for a film.

Russia said yesterday it had arrested eight people after it rescued the crew of the MV Arctic Star off the Cape Verde islands in the Atlantic.

The press had repeatedly reported that the ship had disappeared, but the Malta Maritime Authority revealed yesterday that the ship had never really disappeared but an international security committee kept quiet in order not jeopardise lives.

The arrests ended weeks of official silence over the ship and its $1.3 million cargo of timber, giving rise to speculation about a secret cargo and involvement in espionage.

"Eight people -- citizens of Estonia, Latvia and Russia -- were arrested during an operation to free the ship," Russian Defence Minister Anatoly Serdyukov told President Dmitry Medvedev in remarks posted on the Kremlin site www.kremlin.ru

"An investigation established that on July 24 these people boarded the Arctic Sea and, threatening with weapons, ordered the crew to change the route. The ship then moved on the route dictated by the hijackers towards Africa, with its navigation equipment turned off."

"This was an act of piracy," Serdyukov told reporters.

Moscow's envoy to NATO, Dmitry Rogozin, told Russian TV channels "this was a brilliant operation with disinformation used intentionally in order not to hamper the work of the military".

"NATO didn't take part in the operation but it helped locate the whereabouts of the ship," he said without elaborating.

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Maritime experts have been sceptical that "traditional" pirates would target such a cargo in northern European seas, some of the world's most heavily policed.

"This was in our understanding a quite unique case, the full details of which will certainly one day be made the story of a Hollywood movie," European Commission spokesman Martin Selmayr told a regular news briefing.

EU officials said police of 22 countries had been involved in the investigation and it could be two weeks before full details emerged.

One EU official said it was not clear why it had taken several days for the ship's Finnish owners to inform the police of the incident.

"They use the term 'pirates,'" the official said of the Russian statements. "We are very careful -- it's not clear whether the kind of unlawful acts conducted against this ship was piracy or another kind of unlawful act. We still need much more information."

Another official said: "We haven't seen piracy in the Baltic Sea since the 17th century and we are very cautious about calling this piracy. We have all the events off the coast of Somalia in our heads. This is totally different."