Arctic Sea mystery may never be solved

The spectre of the Maltese- flagged cargo ship is still with us. AFP recently reported that the Russian investigators have completed the inquiry into the piracy mystery of the Arctic Sea and forwarded their findings to the prosecutors to establish the charges against six suspected pirates.

The ship was hijacked in July 2009 and a huge international effort to recover it prompted speculation that it may have been carrying a secret cargo.

It was also reported the Maltese inspectors said they had determined the ship to be free of radioactive materials or dangerous chemicals and that Moscow strongly denied reports the ship could have been carrying advanced S-300 anti-aircraft missiles to Iran.

This baffles me because how could Malta Transport have made such a declaration when the ship was lost for a number of days? Did the investigators examine the ship before the Russian Navy boarded the vessel or was the investigation carried out when the Arctic Sea arrived in Malta?

According to AFP, the act of piracy in Swedish waters was challenged by maritime experts who doubted that light will ever be shed on what cargo the ship was carrying.

It is interesting to note that Sergei Golovkin, writing in the Economic Update (December 2009), argues that in his opinion a masterful exercise in deliberate deception with unknown political names was probably the only plausible explanation for the Arctic Sea mystery. He goes on to argue that the Russian state, or rogue elements within it, attempted to smuggle a surface-to-air missile defence system S-300 to Iran and the Israeli intelligence service Mossad allegedly monitored the shipment and disrupted this rogue transaction by hiring a gang of Russian speaking criminals to perform or stage an act of piracy. Mr Golovkin ends his article by saying that, although circumstances of the story may never truly unfold, we can be certain of one thing: Something rather extraordinary happened behind the scenes and the public has been deliberately deceived about the nature of what it was. Will we ever know the truth? Your guess is as good as mine.