Russia on Wednesday Dec 25,2013 dropped all but one of the cases against 30 crew members of a Greenpeace protest ship following a Kremlin-backed amnesty.
The move marks the end of a 3-month criminal probe against the 26 foreign and 4 Russian activists and comes less than two months before Moscow hosts the Winter Olympic Games in Sochi from Feb 07-23,2014
Twenty-five foreign Greenpeace activists were earlier in the day summoned to the Investigative Committee to receive confirmation that the hooliganism probes launched after their September protest against oil drilling in the Barents Sea had been dropped, Greenpeace said.
Only Italian activist Cristian d'Alessandro failed to receive the relevant paperwork. Greenpeace said the delay was due to the absence of a translator and the Italian was invited to return on Thursday Dec 26,2013
The foreigners are expected to receive exit visas to leave Russia
5 people come from countries that have a no-visa regime with Russia. But "they also need the migration service sticker to leave,
The 4 Russian crew members also benefitted from the amnesty
The group said it also expected Russian investigators to release all the equipment seized during the raid of the Arctic Sunrise, as well as the ship itself, which is still impounded at Russia's northern port of Murmansk.
Note
The icebreaker was boarded by Russian border guards and towed to Murmansk in September after several activists attempted to scale Gazprom's Prirazlomnaya oil rig.
The crew spent several weeks detained in local jails before being transferred to Saint Petersburg and released on bail. Originally facing a charge of piracy, they were later targeted with the less severe hooliganism accusation.
An international maritime court in Germany in November told Russia to release the activists and the ship in response to a formal complaint lodged by the Netherlands, under whose flag the ship sailed.
Russia boycotted the German court hearings and ignored the ruling.
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