US moves tanker captain and colleague from UK waters

The captain and first officer of a Russian-flagged oil tanker have been taken out of UK territory by US Coast Guards.

The Americans seized the vessel, the Marinera, on 7 January south of Iceland before sailing it to the Moray coast, east of Inverness.

The US Department of Justice told Scottish authorities on Tuesday morning that the skipper and his colleague were on board the US Coast Guard vessel Munro.

The 26 remaining crew members – said to be from Russia, India, Georgia and Ukraine – have asked to leave the UK on a voluntary basis.

The men had been held by immigration officials at a hotel in Moray.

But arrangements are now being made to fly five of them from Scotland to the US and the remainder to their home countries.

The development came hours after the Court of Session heard the US was planning to remove the captain and first officer from UK waters “imminently”.

A second hearing is currently under way in Edinburgh.

In the late-night virtual hearing on Monday, Lord Young rejected a request by lawyers for the captain’s wife to stop the US removing her husband from Scottish jurisdiction.

The judge said the 1978 State Immunity Act meant he did not appear to have the power to make such an order against a foreign government.

Natia Dzadzama’s lawyers had argued that her husband, Avtandil Kalandadze, who is of Georgian nationality, should be protected by the Scottish courts and European human rights law.

Lord Young did grant a limited interdict instructing the UK and Scottish governments, or anyone acting on their behalf, not to remove the captain and the crew of the Marinera until the court could further consider the case.

The tanker, formerly known as the Bella 1, was last spotted off Burghead at the weekend.

Washington has accused the vessel of breaching sanctions by carrying oil for Venezuela, Russia and Iran.

Before Monday’s hearing, in a statement released by Anwar, the captain’s wife said she believed it cannot be right “in a civilised society to abduct a whole crew in Scotland and, with assistance from the UK authorities, remove them without observing our laws”.

The UK government backed the operation to seize the tanker, saying it was lawful action against a vessel involved in breaking sanctions.

The Ministry of Defence (MoD) provided operational support and US planes used UK airfields, including some in Scotland.

But Moscow denounced the seizure, demanding that the US treat Russians aboard properly and allow them to return to Russia quickly.

The Russian transport ministry said it had given the vessel “temporary permission” to use the Russian flag, adding that no state had the right to use force against vessels properly registered in other states’ jurisdictions.

First Minister John Swinney previously said he was “deeply concerned” to learn from media reports that the tanker was in the Moray Firth.

He said he would have expected to have been told in advance about steps to accommodate the ship in the firth.

However, last week Scottish Secretary Douglas Alexander said he wrote to the SNP leader to offer him a meeting, but he did not accept.

The UK government previously said that the tanker had entered UK waters to take on fresh supplies.

It is understood US military aircraft landed at small civilian airports in Wick, Caithness, and Benbecula in the Western Isles during the operation on 7 January.

At the time the MoD confirmed that the Royal Navy tanker RFA Tideforce and RAF surveillance aircraft were supporting American personnel and that “deterring, disrupting and degrading” Russia’s “shadow fleet” was a priority.

The Marinera has been in the firth off Burghead, a village on the Moray coast.

The Moray Firth is a sheltered area of sea between the east Highland coast and the coasts of Moray and Aberdeenshire.