The Mystery of the Arctic Sea Hijacking Deepens

A Maltese flagged ship, the Arctic Sea, was hijacked by pirates at sea off the coast of Sweden and went missing for months. That itself was extraordinary given that pirates weren't known to operate in the waters of the Atlantic off the coast of Europe. The ship was recovered by the Russian Navy after a wide search, and the crew was recovered as well.

However, that's where the plot thickens.

The Russians initially claimed that the cargo aboard was nothing but timber - nothing that would raise suspicions. Bloggers and Russian journalists had been pursuing the possibility that there were more nefarious cargoes on board.

Now, the Russians admit something else might have been aboard.

The Maltese-flagged vessel with a crew of 15 Russian sailors was officially heading to Algeria with a cargo of timber. But Moscow's top investigator, Alexander Bastrykin, cast doubt on that theory.

"We do not rule out the possibility that the Arctic Sea transported something other than wood," Bastrykin told the official government newspaper Rossiyskaya Gazeta.

"This is why we asked the crew to remain in Moscow, as we must figure out if any one of them was involved in those events," added Bastrykin, who heads the investigative committee of Russian prosecutors.

The reported detention of 11 Arctic Sea sailors by Russian authorities and claims that they are prohibited from communicating with their families have fuelled speculation of a cover-up.

Strangely, just hours after Bastrykin's interview was published, his press service issued a statement denying that the ship had been on any "secret mission" or that it had been carrying illegal materials.

"The investigation currently does not have any information that the ship could have carried any sort of illegal cargo," it said.

Its statement also rejected allegations of a cover-up and said the sailors were not being kept in isolation.

Meanwhile, the head of the Russian military said that Moscow still needed to clarify what exactly was on board the 4,000-tonne ship.

"We do not know what it is carrying, we only know there is wood and whatever else it is carrying must be clarified by the investigation," Nikolai Makarov, chief of Russia's general staff, said during a visit to Mongolia.