MOSCOW — A Russian court ordered Thursday that 10 Greenpeace activists, including a US ship captain and a photographer who was accompanying the group, be held in custody for two months while the authorities investigate whether a demonstration at an offshore oil rig in the Arctic was an act of piracy.
The court in the port city of Murmansk worked into the evening, conducting individual hearings for the crew of Greenpeace activists — 30 in all — who were detained at the oil rig last week. They arrived in Murmansk Tuesday along with their ship, the Arctic Sunrise, which was towed to port by the Russian coast guard.
The detentions ordered by the court signaled that Russian prosecutors intended to go ahead with criminal cases against the activists.
Two members of the Greenpeace group attempted to board the Prirazlomnaya oil platform in the Pechora Sea on Sept. 18 to protest oil and gas drilling in the Arctic. Russian border guards responded by helicopter and seized their ship.
The 30 Greenpeace activists include people from 18 countries, including Britain, the Netherlands, and the United States. The US captain, Peter Willcox, was formerly master of the Rainbow Warrior, another Greenpeace ship, that exploded and sank during a protest against French nuclear testing in the Pacific in 1985.