14 DAY TRIAL // Earlier today, 30 Greenpeace activists that were held at gunpoint and arrested by Russian officials only a few days ago appeared in front of a panel of judges.
By the looks of it, no charges have yet been filed against any of them. However, it will be some time before the activists are allowed to return to their friends and family.
“22 are being held for two months as Russian authorities pursue an investigation around piracy charges,” Greenpeace explains in a blog post.
The other 8 are to appear in front of the judges for a second time three days from now. Nobody knows whether they'll be released, or if they'll also be detained for another two months.
Interestingly enough, it was only two days ago when President Putin said that, from his standpoint, none of these Greenpeace members qualified as a pirate.
The environmentalists ended up in police custody after two of them scaled an oil rig owned and operated by Russian company Gazprom.
In the aftermath of this incident, their ship, i.e. the Arctic Sunrise, was raided by armed Russian officials and all the people aboard it were arrested.