A Russian trawler accused of illegal fishing has escaped from Norwegian patrol boats with two Norwegian fisheries inspectors aboard after a five-day chase across Arctic seas.
The rusting Elektronsailed into Russian waters early this morning in a snow storm and 9 metre high seas having defied Norwegian attempts to arrest the vessel in a diplomatic row over Arctic fishing rights.
Norway's coastguard boarded the trawler off the Svalbard islands north of the Arctic Circle on Saturday and the coastguard was escorting it back to a Norwegian port when the Elektron switched course and headed for Russia.
The coastguard gave up the chase when the Elektron entered Russian waters after the captain refused demands to surrender. Norway said that the two inspectors, who had not been mistreated, should be quickly handed back.
"This case is not embarrassing for Norway. It's hard for us here in the south to imagine how it is to work in high waves and a storm," Defence Minister Anne-Grete Stroem-Erichsen told NRK public TV when asked why the coastguard did not stop the vessel.
"It's a serious case because we have two Norwegian officials aboard," she said.
The chief of police in Troms, northern Norway, now wants to charge the captain of the Elektron with kidnapping, Norwegian media reported.
Norway accuses the trawler of using an illegal sock-like mesh inside its main trawling nets to scoop up even the smallest fish. Nets are meant to have holes big enough to allow small fish to escape to maintain fish stocks.
"This is an environmental crime of the worst sort," said Rear Admiral Trond Grytting, head of Norway's armed forces in the northern region.
Norway has been critical of Russia for not doing all it could to help resolve the situation. However, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said Moscow did not recognise the unilateral protection zone for fisheries set up by Norway in the north Atlantic.
In 1977, Norway unilaterally set up a 200-mile fishing zone around Svalbard, but its protection zone is only recognised by Finland and Canada. It says all nations can fish in the waters but have to stick to strict quotas.