The captain of a suspected “shadow fleet” oil tanker detained off the coast of France will go on trial in February accused of failing to cooperate with authorities.
The French president, Emmanuel Macron, has claimed the vessel belongs to Russia’s fleet of ageing tankers using different flags to avoid western sanctions to transport crude oil.
The ship, now known as the Boracay but which has undergone numerous name changes, is also suspected of being used to launch drones that closed airports across Denmark last week. Macron said that while he could not rule out the possibility, he declined to confirm a clear link.
Denmark has stopped short of accusing Russia directly of being responsible for the drone incursions, but the director of the Danish intelligence service, Thomas Ahrenkiel, on Friday did say that “Russia is waging a hybrid war against Nato.” Denmark also raised its threat level of possible sabotage against the armed forces to “high”.
The Russian president, Vladimir Putin, accused France of “piracy” and claimed Macron was using the ship to “deflect” from domestic problems.
News of the trial in France came as a court in Finland on Friday made a surprise decision in the criminal case against Eagle S, another tanker understood to be part of Russia’s shadow fleet, suspected of damaging five undersea cables by dragging its anchor between Finland and Estonia.
Helsinki district court had been expected to deliver a decision on the case. But in a move that is likely to be influential in any future such cases, it said it was unable to issue a ruling because it was beyond its jurisdiction.
In France, a prosecutor said the Boracay’s two Chinese crew members, the captain and the chief mate, had been released from police custody after being detained since Tuesday. The chief mate was released without charge but the captain was summoned for trial in Brest on 23 February where he could face up to a year in prison and a €150,000 (£131,000) fine.
The tanker, one of four Russia-linked ships in the seas near Denmark at the time of drone sightings on 22 and 24 September, was sailing from the Russian oil terminal in Primorsk carrying 750,000 barrels of crude oil to India when it was intercepted by a French navy vessel on Sunday and diverted towards Saint-Nazaire in western France.
Speaking at a European summit in Copenhagen, Denmark, Macron said the French navy had faced “inappropriate and extremely aggressive behaviour” towards the French frigate and helicopters that had been deployed to board the tanker, which justified the opening of a judicial investigation.
Asked whether the tanker could be linked to drones flights, Macron said: “I’m very cautious because our services and our justice are still working … I don’t exclude it at all, but I cannot here attribute very clearly and establish a clear link between these two phenomenon.”
Speaking at a foreign policy forum in Sochi, Putin said: “There is no other way to deflect attention of the population, citizens of France from difficult internal problems that are hard to solve.”
Putin emphasised that “there was no reason whatsoever for seizing the tanker in neutral waters”, adding that “there wasn’t and couldn’t be” any military cargo or drones. He also warned that such action could provoke confrontation.
“It’s piracy, and how do you deal with pirates?” Putin said. “You destroy them. It doesn’t mean that tomorrow a war will erupt all across the global ocean, but certainly the risk of confrontation will seriously increase.”
Stéphane Kellenberger, the prosecutor of the western port city of Brest, said two Chinese crew members, the captain and the chief mate, who had been detained since Tuesday, had been released from police custody. The chief mate has been released without charge.
A preliminary investigation was opened into the crew’s “refusal to cooperate” and “failure to justify the nationality of the vessel” after the Atlantic maritime prefect alerted justice authorities on Monday, Kellenberger said. The inquiry showed the captain could not be directly considered responsible for the second offence, he added.
Kellenberger said the French navy intervened and boarded the ship on Saturday off France’s Atlantic coast in line with international law when there appeared to be a discrepancy between its apparent nationality and real nationality.
An investigation led by the French navy concluded that the ship, coming from Russia and heading to India with a “large oil shipment”, was flying no flag, he said.
The captain was summoned for trial in Brest on 23 February. He faces up to one year in prison and a €150,000 (£131,000) fine.
French military spokesperson Col Guillaume Vernet said the ship was ordered to stay in place in a safe area.
In comments earlier on Thursday in Copenhagen, Macron praised the work of the French navy to “identify the presence of a shadow fleet”.
“You kill the business model by detaining even for days or weeks these vessels and forcing them to organise themselves differently,” he said.
Macron said “30 to 40%” of Russia’s war effort was “financed through the revenues of the shadow fleet”.
“It represents more than €30bn. So it’s extremely important to increase the pressure on this shadow fleet, because it will clearly reduce the capacity to finance this war effort for Russia,” he said.
Macron said the ship was “exactly the same” as a vessel that was detained by Estonia earlier this year for the same flag issue.
