Last Greenpeace activist cleared of hooligan charges

Russia yesterday started issuing visas to foreign crew members of a Greenpeace protest ship and dropped the criminal case against the last member of the 30-strong team.

Christian d’Alessandro was notified by investigators that the case against him had been dropped, Greenpeace said.

Earlier this week, Russia closed the cases of 29 crew members of Greenpeace’s Arctic Sunrise ship under a Kremlin-backed amnesty.

Anthony Perrett from Britain was the first crew member to be given an exit visa, and he showed the document to journalists outside the offices of the Federal Migration Service.

“He will be able to go home before the New Year!” Greenpeace tweeted.

“More than 20 people from the Arctic Sunrise crew applied for visa documents,” a spokesman at the migration service said. However, the spokesman said the service could not guarantee that all activists would get home before the year’s end.

Of the 26 foreign crew members, five do not need visas in Russia.

However, Greenpeace said they still need a “sticker” from the migration service to leave the country. Russian border guards boarded the ship and had it towed to the Arctic port of Murmansk in September over protest against Arctic oil drilling.

The activists were charged with hooliganism which carries a maximum punishment of seven years in jail. They originally faced a charge of piracy, which is punishable by up to 15 years in prison.

The probe against the 30-strong crew, which included four Russians, was dropped this week after a Kremlin-backed amnesty that was widely seen as an attempt by Putin to improve Russia’s image before it hosts the Winter Olympic Games in Sochi in February.