KIEV, April 6. /TASS/. The Kherson City Court has arrested Vladimir Gorbenko, the captain of Russia’s Nord fishing vessel detained in Ukraine, for two months, a source in the Russian embassy in Ukraine told TASS.
"He has been arrested for two months but may be released on bail," the source said.
Spokesperson for the so-called ‘Crimean’ Prosecutor’s Office (part of the Ukrainian Prosecutor General’s Office) Tatyana Tikhonchik, in turn, told TASS that the captain, arrested until May 31, 2018, had a bail of 35,240 hryvnias ($1,355).
The vessel’s captain is charged under the Ukrainian Criminal Code’s article on "violating the entry and exit rules to Ukraine’s occupied territory" and may face up to five years in prison if found guilty, while the ship may be confiscated.
Meanwhile, the Primorsky District Court in the Ukrainian city of Mariupol is considering administrative charges against the vessel’s crew members.
Ukraine’s State Border Service detained the Nord fishing vessel with a crew of ten Russian citizens in the Sea of Azov on March 25.
Russia’s Federal Security Service Directorate for the Crimean Republic launched a criminal case against Ukraine’s State Border Service on charges of "hijacking an aircraft, watercraft or railway train.".