Russia to Protest Detention of Trawler by Senegal – Media

MOSCOW, January 6 (RIA Novosti) – Russia's Federal Fisheries Agency plans to issue a note of protest to Senegal over the Russian trawler detained at the weekend, local media reported Monday.

The Oleg Naidenov trawler was detained by the Senegalese navy Saturday off the coasts of Senegal and Guinea-Bissau. It was escorted to the Senegalese port of Dakar, where it was put under military police guard.

Agence France Presse news agency cited Senegal's Fisheries Minister Haidar El Ali as saying Sunday that the country planned to fine the trawler's owner about $800,000 for repeated illegal fishing in its waters.

Yury Parshev, executive director of Feniks, the company that owns the Oleg Naidenov, insists the trawler was fishing legally in Guinea-Bissau's waters. The Federal Fisheries Agency also denies any wrongdoing by the ship, which is believed to have been carrying a crew of 62 Russians and about 20 nationals of Guinea-Bissau.

The Russian-flagged vessel was caught fishing illegally in Senegalese waters in February 2012 by the Greenpeace environmental group, which subsequently put the Oleg Naidenov on a blacklist of vessels accused of poaching in West African seas. Footage of that incident shows the Greenpeace activists pulling down a piece of canvas that had been concealing the trawler's name and official number.

The head of the Federal Fisheries Agency, Andrei Krainy, told Russia's Dozhd TV on Sunday that the detention of the vessel by Senegal was "prompted" by Greenpeace. Ivan Blokov, Greenpeace's Russia director, dismissed the allegation as "strange."

Russian Embassy and Federal Fisheries Agency officials will meet with Senegal's president, Macky Sall, on Tuesday to discuss the situation, Krainy told Dozhd.

Parshev told Russia's Channel One television that the detention of the ship was an attempt to "squeeze out" Russia from the fiercely competitive fishing market off Africa's Atlantic coast, a claim that echoed comments made Sunday by Mikhail Margelov, Russia's presidential envoy to Africa.