MOSCOW, January 17. /ITAR-TASS/. A million dollars bail is posted for release of the Oleg Naidyonov trawler detained by Senegalese authorities for illegal fishing and held in the port of Dakar since January 3, 2014, an official of the Russian Fishery Agency told Itar-Tass.
The ship owner has posted bail for release of the trawler, in accordance with the international maritime regulations. The Russian company has done all the procedural actions, said Russian Fishery Agency public relations center head Alexander Savelyev.
The vessel is expected to be freed, and the matter will be turned over to court consideration.
However, there was no reaction of Senegalese authorities to the Russian company's actions so far. The trawler remained in the port, the Russian Fishery Agency official said.
The trawler Oleg Naydenov was detained off Guinea Bissau on January 4 for suspected illegal fishing, Lieutenant-Colonel Adama Diop, from the public relations office at the Senegalese Army, said.
“The ship was engaged in illegal fishing in our waters not far from the border with Guinea Bissau, south of Senegal,” Agence France Presse quoted him as saying. “This is the third trawler we have detained in one week on similar suspicions.”
Senegal’s Minister for Fishery and Maritime Affairs Ali Haidar confirmed Diop’s words on the radio. “The Russian vessel was fishing without proper permits,” he said.
The minister said the trawler had headed to Dakar only after the interference by the military but had ignored marine police’s orders before that. “This trawler is a repeat offender. It has been fishing in Senegalese waters without permission many times,” he added.
The ship was stopped 46 miles off Guinea Bissau earlier in the day, after which four army officers from the Senegalese warship Ferlo boarded it and ordered the captain to follow them to their vessel. The captain refused to obey.
“After that the military attempted to take the captain to the Senegalese military ship by force, but the chief officer, acting on the captain’s instructions, sounded an alarm,” Federal Fishery Agency spokesperson said.
For some time, the trawler’s crew imitated engine problems to keep the ship in place.
There were 82 persons aboard the ship - 62 Russians and 20 citizens of Guinea Bissau. The trawler was procuring fish off that African country under an inter-governmental agreement, which requires Russian sailors to take locals aboard for training and work.
The trawler belongs to the closed joint stock company Feniks registered in Murmansk, northern Russia. The company said every idle day of the ship in Dakar would cost it one million rubles.
The Oleg Naydenov is a large factory trawler, 120 metres long. It was built in Germany in 1989 and received its current name in 2005 in honor of Murmansk’s first mayor. Prior to that, its name was Leonid Galchenko.