by Ben Stewart
Christensen’s first, most urgent task is to get organised in Murmansk before the Sunrise docks. The crew is going to need more than just lawyers. Appointed to lead the ground team is 38-year-old Belgian Fabien Rondal, a Russian-speaking former roadie for Rage Against the Machine.
‘You need to get there as soon as possible,’ Christensen tells him. ‘We’re thinking the ship will be there Tuesday or Wednesday and we need you and your team in place before then. I can’t tell you when you’ll be able to come home. Nobody knows what happens next.’
SIX
Alex Harris pulls a mobile telephone from the bag of rice in her cabin where she hid it, and dusts it down. She looks over her shoulder then turns it on and watches the screen. Nothing. It’s taking for ever. She shakes the phone. Still nothing. Then the screen lights up and her heart leaps as she sees one bar of signal.
It’s five days since commandos stormed the Arctic Sunrise and now, finally, there is a dark shadow on the horizon. Land. The working phone in the galley has long since died, but the mobiles they hid in the cabin are getting reception. Alex dials a familiar number and hears it ringing. Her parents can barely believe they’re speaking to her. Breathlessly they tell her there are camera crews on the doorstep and pictures of her in the newspaper.
The crew take turns to call their parents, their partners and kids. They tell them they’re okay, that this will soon be over. Frank telephones the London office. He says the soldiers were flown in specially from Moscow, these guys aren’t amateurs, they were operating under specific orders. ‘I’ve been on a lot of actions,’ he says, ‘but this feels different. This isn’t good. The Kremlin’s up to its neck in this.’ But then he says, ‘Something’s happening, I’ve got to go, I’ll try to call again.’ And the line cuts out.
They’ve come to a halt. The Arctic Sunrise is anchored and the coastguard vessel ties up alongside. A Russian officer – a new guy – walks into the mess room with a translator. ‘Okay, listen up! You people are going to be taken off the ship in two groups and interrogated, so prepare to leave. Two groups, fifteen people then fifteen people. Group one, you have five minutes to get ready.’
‘What should people bring with them?’ asks Dima. ‘People don’t have their documents. You’ve confiscated their papers.’
‘It’s cold, so you should wear warm clothes. But you’ll only be gone for a few hours, so don’t bring too much. And don’t worry about your passports, you won’t need them anyway.’
Sini asks, ‘I have to take a medicine. How much of it do I need to bring?’
‘You should bring enough for one full day. Twenty-four hours. You’re not going to need it for that long, but just to be sure.’ The interpreter translates his words, then the officer adds, ‘Actually, just to be safe, bring enough medicine for three days. I’m sure you won’t need it, but still, bring it for three days.’
Dima has well-attuned bullshit antennae and right now they’re twitching. He’s been around long enough to know when he’s being lied to. He goes to his cabin and packs everything. He packs all his clothes, pants, all his T-shirts, underwear, socks, a thick book and extra chewing tobacco. Everything. All of it in the big pink bag he brought from Sweden when he boarded the Sunrise. And now he’s thinking, shit, I’m going into one of the most homophobic countries in the world with a huge pink bag, from a ship with a rainbow on the side. Great.
The first group of fifteen is taken up onto the deck. It’s the first time they’ve been outside for days. The ship is swarming with armed uniformed men, they’re covering every inch of railing, dozens of eyes stare at the activists as they shuffle along the deck. The first fifteen are transferred to another, smaller ship that’s also heaving with soldiers. The journey takes forty-five minutes, and when they pull into Murmansk dozens more armed men are waiting for them on the jetty.
It’s dark now. Raining. Faiza Oulahsen – the young climate campaigner from Holland – looks around. The port is decrepit, with rusting cranes towering over an old bus parked up with its door open. A hand touches her shoulder, she turns around, a woman in uniform is facing her. The woman says, ‘You can wait on the bus if you’d like to.’ Faiza shakes her head. She hasn’t felt the wind on her face for five days and she’s savouring the rain and the cold, stiff breeze.
It’s the last time she’ll feel it for a very long time.
When all thirty have been brought to land they’re ordered to board the bus. They gingerly take seats then watch it fill up with soldiers who sit next to them, behind them, in front of them. The soldiers’ faces are covered by black masks with little holes for their eyes and mouths. The bus is old and smells of metal. They can taste it.
By now the video journalist Kieron Bryan is worried. He has a reporter’s eye for detail and since they docked he’s counted 300 uniformed men with guns. Some from the FSB, some from the police, some from the army. There were at least sixty on each ship – the Sunrise and the Ladoga – and another sixty on the ship when they were transferred to land. Maybe 150 meeting them at the port. Kieron stares through the window at the old Soviet-style buildings and feels a potent charge of fear building in his legs. After a few minutes the bus comes to a stop outside a huge, well-lit building surrounded by scores more camouflaged rifle-wielding men.
Camera flashes burst through the windows. On the pavement, among the military contingent, the crew sees people wearing Greenpeace T-shirts, arms aloft, fists clenched. It’s Fabien Rondal and his team. The Belgian was tipped off by a local journalist that the crew would be brought here. There are claps and shouts of support, the prisoners make V for Victory signs through the window, then they’re pulled out of the bus and pushed through the gauntlet of lights, cameras and guns, and into the building.
The thirty are quickly processed through a metal detector (keys and cash were liberated long ago, phones were left on the Sunrise). Phil nervously waits for the camera card in the sole of his boot to beep, but he passes through the machine without setting it off. They’re led up a flight of stairs. Two men in shiny suits are standing at the top. As the activists pass them the men grab their arms and shake their shoulders and in Russian they say, ‘I’m your lawyer! Don’t sign anything! Demand to see your lawyer! Don’t sign anything! Demand to see your lawyer!’
Dima translates the message and it gets passed back down the line. ‘Don’t sign anything! Demand to see your lawyer!’ Then a door swings open and they’re pushed into a large room with thirty empty chairs. They are at the headquarters of the Investigative Committee – Putin’s domestic legal hammer, the organisation that has put Pussy Riot and scores of other political activists behind bars.7
The walls are covered with instructional posters illustrated by scenes of violence and bold banner messages in Russian.
HOW TO TELL IF A PERSON HAS BEEN KILLED BY A STAB WOUND
And above these posters is a huge framed portrait of Vladimir Putin.
The crew take a seat or kick their heels. The mood is heavy. This feels bad. A uniformed woman appears in the doorway.
‘Allakhverdov? Andrey Allakhverdov? Roman Dolgov? Dima Litvinov?’
‘Yes.’
‘Follow me, please.’
Then a man appears behind the woman.
‘Faiza Oulahsen? Sini Saarela?’
Sini is led down a corridor to a small, grimy interview room. It’s cold. A woman is sitting at a desk in front of a computer monitor. Sini sits down. Opposite her is a policeman. He starts to speak. The woman translates.
‘We have to write a written report. About the incident.’
‘The incident?’
‘The incident. A serious crime has been committed and we suspect you may be responsible.’
In rooms along the corridor the activists are facing investigators and translators. Dima is sitting opposite a man in scratchy blue trousers and an open-necked civilian shirt who introduces himself as a colonel in the Investigative Committee. He has in front of him a sheet of paper, which he lifts with some solemnity
before reading out an official proclamation. ‘You are now considered to be a suspect in a case of piracy.’
‘Piracy?’ Dima shakes his head. For a moment he wonders if he has misunderstood. ‘Did you say piracy?’
‘Yes, piracy.’
‘Are you kidding me? How can you … do I look like a pirate? Come on, man. This is insane.’
The colonel raises a dismissive hand. ‘Spare me. You don’t need to say anything right now, unless you are proposing to give me a statement?’
Dima screws up his face and pats the air dismissively. ‘No. No, I’m not giving you a statement. I’m giving you a fact. You can’t charge us with piracy. That’s just so dumb it hurts.’
‘And that is your statement?’
‘No! No, it’s not a statement, it’s … it’s just … seriously, man. Piracy?’
‘Either you’re making a statement or you’re not. Make up your mind. In the meantime I need to tell you you’re remanded in custody until the court hearing.’ The colonel scribbles something on the sheet of paper, and still looking down he adds, ‘We’re going to ask the court to hold you in custody for the length of the investigation.’
‘Well, how long is that going to take?’
The man looks up, lays down his pen and presses the tips of his fingers together.
‘We can keep you for a year and a half.’
‘What?’
He shrugs his shoulders.
‘Okay,’ says Dima, ‘what’s the sentence for piracy?’
‘Ten to fifteen.’
‘Years?’
‘Years.’
Dima crumples in his seat. His heels slide on the floor. He grips the handles of the chair and holds on tight, steadying himself. In the very pit of his stomach he can feel a tight knot of fear, like a fist in his belly. And this is the moment Dima Litvinov crosses into a new plane of existence. He was just in the middle of a normal, good, hardcore Greenpeace action, and now suddenly he’s facing fifteen years in jail.
Meanwhile, in a room down the corridor Roman Dolgov is listening to an argument between two investigators.
‘This is crazy,’ says one. ‘There are thirty of them.’
‘What can we do?’ says the other. ‘It’s coming from the top. An order from the minister.’
They’re in the hands of the Kremlin now.
When they’ve all been read the declaration, they’re taken out to transport vans. An officer barks orders in Russian. Dima translates.
‘Okay, listen up, detainees! You are being taken to lock-up facilities while you await hearings to consider your continued detention during the course of the investigation. Please, take your places.’
The back doors of the transport vans are thrown open. The activists are loaded into the vehicles, engines turn over and growl into life. Half an hour later one of the vans pulls into a submarine base. Kieron, Frank and Cristian are hauled out and led through the complex to a cell. It measures two metres by a metre and a half. Kieron grimaces then slowly lowers himself to the floor. He’s tired, confused, unsure how he ended up here.
The three of them are sat on the floor in a row with their feet up on the wall opposite. In the corner of the cell a human shit is radiating a grotesque smell. It must have been there for weeks, maybe longer. It’s green and white. Covered in fungus.
Across town Dima and Pete Willcox are driven into the yard of a police station. They’re strip-searched and their fingerprints are taken, then they’re put in a cell with a Russian guy, a drunk who’s in for assault. The toilet is a hole in the floor behind a partition that you can crouch behind. The Russian is leaning against the wall, smoking a cigarette. Pete lies down and closes his eyes. It’s been a long, long week. Dima sits on the floor and rests his chin on his knees. In the background, fuzzy and barely tuned, a radio is playing a Russian pop song, but a few minutes later the news comes on, and the Sunrise is the lead story.
‘… when there was an attack on the platform by the group, who were pretending to be ecologists … have now arrived in Murmansk … tried to take over an oil platform … extremely violent … injured coastguard officers …’ Dima’s head jerks up. In his stomach the knot tightens. ‘… managed to apprehend them … clear case of piracy … the state has succeeded in defending the Russian Federation from this attack. The government is not yet sure if this was an operation directed by the secret services of a foreign country or whether it was a rival corporation paying the group to launch their assault. But obviously this was an attack on Russia’s legitimate interests.’ Then an official from the Kremlin is interviewed – the Kremlin! – who says, ‘Let me be clear, this is not something we are going to tolerate. There will be serious consequences for these individuals.’
Dima hugs his knees tight. The drunk draws on his cigarette. ‘Ten to fifteen,’ he says, blowing out smoke. His words are slurred, his nose is dark red, the colour of cherries. ‘That’s heavy.’
‘I’m sorry?’
‘Piracy. Ten to fifteen years, that’s heavy, man.’
‘You know we’re Greenpeace?’
‘Of course.’
‘You really think we’re going to do time?’
‘Well, once you’re in here, and if they say you did it …’
‘But do you really think we’ll go to jail?’
‘If they say you did it, you usually did.’
Dima stares at him. Is this guy for real?
What does he know? He’s just a drunk.
SEVEN
It’s a week since the Sunrise was stormed, two days since they landed in Murmansk.
Across the city the activists are woken by policemen and taken out to prison transport vehicles. They’re called avtozaks – vans with tiny compartment cells so small that the prisoners’ knees are pressed against the wall in front of their noses. And this is how the thirty are taken to court to learn their fate.
The Russian men arrive first – Roman Dolgov, the photojournalist Denis Sinyakov and Andrey Allakhverdov, the ship’s fifty-year-old chief press officer. They’re locked in a holding cell. Their lawyer comes in. He tells them Putin has been talking about the case. The President said they’re ‘obviously not pirates’,8 but Putin also claimed the commandos couldn’t have known the Sunrise crew were genuine environmental activists, that the authorities had grounds to suspect the campaigners were using Greenpeace as a cover for more sinister motives.
The door opens, a guard appears.
‘Sinyakov?’
‘Yes.’
‘It’s time.’
Denis is led away. He isn’t worried, he assumes the hearing is a formality and he’ll soon be free. At the police station where they were held, the officers went to the shop and bought him toothpaste, a hairbrush and shampoo. And when he left the station for the court this morning they gave him a meal in a box. Cops in Russia are never this pleasant. Denis is confident it will soon be over.
He’s locked in a cage in the courtroom. He’s familiar with the set-up. As one of Russia’s leading photojournalists he’s covered the most celebrated trials in his country’s recent history. He was only on the ship to photograph the protest, but now it’s him in the dock.
The hearing starts. He looks at the judge, a middle-aged guy, fifty-five maybe. And he’s seen this judge so many times. Not this man exactly, but this type. The man’s eyes betray complete disinterest in the case. It was the same at the Pussy Riot trial. It was just like this in the courtroom with Mikhail Khodorkovsky – the oligarch prosecuted on trumped-up charges after he challenged Putin.
Now Denis is worried.
The prosecutor speaks. Denis’s lawyer responds. The judge looks bored. When he does speak – to deliver his verdict – the judge does so without emotion, mumbling his way through a text on a sheet of paper in front of him. There is no trace of feeling in his voice, it’s like he’s reading from the telephone directory, but his final words explode in Denis’s face.
‘… therefore the accused is jailed for two months whil
e the authorities investigate the criminal attack on the oil platform.’
Denis grips the bars of the cage. He’s staring at the judge, shaking his head. A guard opens the door, handcuffs him and leads him out of the courtroom and back to the holding cell. Andrey and Roman look up.
‘Well?’
‘Two months.’
Roman jumps to his feet, but before he can process the news, a guard is leading him out of the cell. He’s taken to the courtroom, where he’s told he will be jailed for two months while the investigation continues, and for ten to fifteen years if he’s convicted.
Downstairs, a van holding the women parks at the back entrance of the courthouse, and one by one, their hands cuffed behind their backs, they jump out and are led up the stairs towards the holding cells.
Half an hour later Kieron, Frank and Cristian step out of an avtozak, surrounded by guards. One of them flashes a lopsided smile and says, ‘Welcome to Russia.’ Frank looks around. The place is swarming with heavily armed soldiers and policemen. They really are taking this seriously, he thinks. They’re taken to a holding cell. Inside are French Canadian activist Alexandre ‘Po’ Paul and electrician David Haussmann, whose partner back home in New Zealand is pregnant.
‘You guys all right?’ Frank asks. ‘No offence, Po, but you look terrible.’
Po-Paul shakes his head slowly.
‘I’ve got some really bad news.’
‘What? What’s happened?’
‘It’s jail.’
‘Oh, piss off,’ Frank says, laughing. ‘Not the time for jokes.’
‘Seriously. We’re all getting sent down.’
Frank stares at him, biting his lip, then he looks at Kieron, whose mouth has dropped open.
‘I’ve just been in court,’ says Po. ‘They’ve given me two months’ detention, minimum. For piracy.’
