Norwegian Ship Breaks Fishing Code in Russian Economic Zone

The Norwegian Vikarus-1 trawler violated the fishing code of the Russian economic zone, where the vessel caught capelin on January 24th-29th, Vladimir Beryozkin, press secretary of the Federal Frontier Service's Arctic Regional Department, informed a RIA Novosti Northwest correspondent on Friday.

After fishing the Norwegian fishermen arrived at Murmansk's seaport to discharge the 500-ton catch. All the fish was caught within the framework of a provided quota and entered in the journal. However, the Russian-Norwegian fishing agreement stipulates that when fishing in the Russian economic zone, a captain must report his ship's position data to frontier guards once a day. To this effect, special satellite communication equipment was put up at all the Russian and Norwegian trawlers. During the six fishing days, the Vikarus' captain never got in touch with Russian frontier guards.

The captain of the ship refused to sign the report drawn up by officers of the Federal Frontier Service's Arctic Regional Department. The procedure of imposing a penalty on the Norwegian fisherman and the amount of compensation will be decided in court.