Russian captain denies manslaughter in North Sea collision, faces UK trial in January
LONDON (AP) — The Russian captain of a cargo ship that collided with a U.S. tanker in the North Sea pleaded not guilty to the manslaughter of one of his crew at a U.K. court hearing on Friday.
Vladimir Motin, 59, from St. Petersburg, appeared by video link from prison for the pretrial hearing at London's Central Criminal Court. Assisted by a Russian interpreter, he denied a charge of gross manslaughter over the death of 38-year-old Mark Angelo Pernia.
Motin was ordered detained until his next hearing, and his trial was set for Jan. 12.
The Portugal-flagged cargo ship Solong was traveling at about 15 knots (17 mph or 28 kph) when it hit the anchored tanker MV Stena Immaculate about 12 miles (19 kilometers) off the coast of northeast England on March 10, sparking a fire that lasted nearly a week. The tanker was transporting jet fuel for the U.S. military.
Rescuers saved 36 people from both ships. Pernia, from the Philippines, is missing and presumed dead.
U.K. authorities have said that there's nothing to indicate that the collision was connected to national security.
Environmental damage from the collision was far less than initially feared, though thousands of pellets used in plastics production, known as nurdles, from the ruptured containers on the Solong have since washed up along England's east coast.
Conservationists say the nurdles aren't toxic, but can harm animals if ingested.
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His comments came after Putin finally broke his silence following Kyiv's co-ordinated drone assaults to once again rule out a ceasefire in Ukraine. The Russian leader said that Kyiv would exploit the break in the fighting to rearm and remobilise and carry out further 'terrorist attacks'. Kim Jong-un has vowed to 'unconditionally support' Russia in its war in Ukraine and said he expected Moscow to emerge victorious. North Korea has become one of Moscow's main allies during its more than three-year Ukraine offensive, sending thousands of troops and large quantities of weapons to help the Kremlin oust Ukrainian forces from Russia's Kursk border region. Meeting top Russian security official Sergei Shoigu on Wednesday, Kim said that Pyongyang would 'unconditionally support the stand of Russia and its foreign policies in all the crucial international political issues including the Ukrainian issue'. Kim 'expressed expectation and conviction that Russia would, as ever, surely win victory in the sacred cause of justice'. The two sides agreed to 'continue to dynamically expand' relations. Russia and North Korea signed a sweeping military deal last year, including a mutual defence clause, during a rare visit by Vladimir Putin to the nuclear-armed North. We're bringing you all the latest from the war in Ukraine.
