And Dima shouts back, ‘Come on, man. Don’t worry, we’re not even sure we’re going by Stolypin. Maybe we’ll go by bus or by plane.’
‘No, it is going to be very bad. I am not happy about this. It is bad. And in St Petersburg they have Kresty’ – the notorious prison, famous for housing political detainees as far back as Trotsky – ‘It is a tough prison. It has bad cells, poor conditions, a very strict regime. My cellmates, they say it is dark.’
Daniel Simons is terrified.
If he screws this up then he’ll be responsible for the Arctic 30 staying in jail for years. He thinks this is the only good shot Greenpeace has at getting everyone out. There is nothing he has dreaded more than appearing as a witness before the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea.
Twenty-one eminent judges from around the world are sitting in a semi-circle in a vast Hamburg courtroom. All but one of them are elderly men. They look like a council of Jedi Knights in a Star Wars movie. And Simons is standing before them.
He and his boss Jasper Teulings have pushed for weeks for a hearing at ITLOS – the international court empowered to demand the release of the Sunrise and its crew. Now that hearing is starting and Simons is giving evidence. For the Greenpeace lawyers it looks like an open and shut case – the raid on the Sunrise would only have been legal if the Arctic 30 were genuine pirates, and by now not even the Kremlin’s spokesmen are claiming that.
The Russian government is boycotting the hearing, a move taken by observers to be an admission of the weakness of their case. Nevertheless one of the judges, Vladimir Golitsyn, is from Russia, and Simons feels he seems to be speaking for the Kremlin as he fires off a volley of hostile questions.[108] Simons reels off answers with a confidence that belies the heavy responsibility he’s feeling.
When the submissions are completed the court announces that it will rule in a fortnight. Daniel Simons breathes a sigh of great relief. He leaves the courtroom and fetches his computer. He and Teulings have one more thing to do today.
They’re still in the court building. They go to the Dutch delegation and tell them they have something that might be of interest. Simons opens his laptop and presses play. On the screen masked armed commandos abseil onto the deck of the Arctic Sunrise. Activists thrust their arms in the air and offer no resistance. Frank is chased up steps and pulled to the ground.
It’s the film from Phil, recorded on the camera card and smuggled out through a matchbox.
The Dutch delegation stares open-mouthed at the screen. They’re impressed by the intensity of it. The activists look nothing like pirates. Immediately the delegation submits the footage to the international court. Greenpeace submits it to BuzzFeed, and within an hour it’s running on TV stations across the globe.
Simons and Teulings are certain the ITLOS panel will see the footage. Nobody’s immune to the impact of those images, they think. Not even these unimpeachable judges. It could play a crucial role. That night they toast Phil Ball.
The next morning, 1,700 miles away, Phil is at gulyat, walking in circles in a box, when he hears Frank’s voice.
‘Phil! Hey, Phil, you there?’
‘Yeah, I’m here. Still fucking here.’
‘You see the TV last night?’
‘No, what?’
‘That footage you shot. It was all over Russian TV.’
‘What footage?’
‘Of the raid on the ship.’
Phil stops walking. ‘Seriously?’
‘All over the news.’
Elation surges through his body. He feels it washing over him, endorphins exploding in his brain. He jumps up and slaps the wall. ‘Yeeees!’
‘Didn’t you see it?’
‘My cellmate doesn’t let me watch the news. He’s into these crappy soap operas. Jesus, I missed the world premiere of my own fucking film.’
‘It was amazing. Soldiers coming down the rope, guns, me getting roughed up. I’m on TV getting pushed over. Seriously, they look like thugs.’
‘Amazing.’
‘Phil, how did you do it? Last I heard, you’d shoved it in the extractor fan in the galley.’
Phil looks up. Through the wire mesh he can see the guard patrolling on the bridge above. Around him he can hear shouted conversations in Russian.
‘Come on, Phil. How did you do it?’
‘You know what, Frank. When we get out of this place you can buy me a beer and I’ll tell you.’
Then, before the day is out, Putin’s own Presidential Council for Civil Society and Human Rights, led by Mikhail Fedotov, announces it has written to the head of the Investigative Committee offering to act as guarantors for the Arctic 30 if they are released on bail. It’s the same offer that Kumi Naidoo made, but this time it’s coming from someone inside the Kremlin.
6th November
The IMO Tribunal [International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea] meets today. They are supposed to have a decision by the 21st. That’s two weeks. I asked if there was any chance the court would hold us over for another 60 days… and [the lawyer] Alexandre de Moscow said he EXPECTED IT. Boy he is changing his tune! He now says Russia will want to think about the ruling for at least a month. So there goes Thanksgiving, and probably Christmas. And I went right down the tubes. Sounds like we will catch a two day train to St Pete on Saturday. If we could all be together in one car on the train, it would be wonderful. But it does not seem likely at the moment. Came back with JB [New Zealander Jon Beauchamp] & Marco Polo [Kruso]. I got left in a holding cell again for an hour. At least I was alone. I wonder what I did to piss off the front gate guards. We were on the news tonight. I wonder what it was?
The Kremlin appears contemptuous of the ITLOS legal case. Even if it rules against Russia there’s no guarantee the order to release them won’t just be ignored. And anyway, the Arctic 30 are far more concerned by the imminent move to St Petersburg. They’ve been told by their lawyers that they’ll be split up. Most of the men will be held in Kresty, some of them will go to another prison and the women will be held at the all-female St Petersburg SIZO-5. And still nobody can tell them when the move will happen, how they’ll be transported and, most importantly, why. Even the guards ask the activists the same questions. Of course everybody has a theory, especially their Russian cellmates.
‘They’re getting ready to release you, but they want to sweeten you up first, get you out of this shithole, make sure none of you get beaten up, no black eyes for the cameras.’
‘I guess they’re getting ready to really screw you, send you down for years, put you in a real prison.’
‘It’s because the trial is going to start. They’re going to have a trial and they want it in a big city, big lights, big show.’
The activists join in the speculation – nothing can stop them doing that – but they also know not to believe anything until it happens.
Don’t Trust Don’t Fear Don’t Beg.
The women are worried that contact with the others will be restricted in St Petersburg. At SIZO-1 during the daily walks they’re able to communicate with their friends. It’s the best part of the day, shouting over the walls in those dark and cramped boxes and being able to hear the voices of the others coming back. But what if they can’t talk to each other in St Petersburg? What if they’re alone?