Greenpeace activist Colin Russell arrives home

Date
    January 3, 2014


Greenpeace activist Colin Russell, with his wife Christine and daughter Madeleine, speaks to the media after arriving back in Hobart.      

Freed Greenpeace activist Colin Russell said the Abbott government did too little, too late, to get him out from behind bars in Russia.      

Mr Russell, a marine radio operator, said the government should have fought his case much harder in what was clearly going to culminate in a political solution.

"Apparently they were just going to let me go through the Russian legal process, due legal process," Mr Russell said on arrival home in Hobart, more than three months after the Arctic 30 were arrested and charged for an Arctic oil drilling protest.




"But it doesn't exist. If you're accused in Russia, you're guilty. It wasn't going to happen. So it was going to be a political end."


This was particularly clear after the International Tribunal on the Law of the Sea ruled against Russia, and for the release of the 30, and their ship Arctic Sunrise.

"I felt after the ITLOS ruling, maybe they should have gone into bat a little bit more for me," he said. "I think it was a little bit too little, too late, really."    


He arrived home in Hobart on Thursday night after a leaving St Petersburg at the weekend with his wife Christine and daughter Madeleine. 

The family stayed in Amsterdam briefly before flying home.

"A friend of ours leant us their little house right in the middle of Amsterdam," he said. "I felt freedom for the first time in three months. It was great."

The 59-year-old said he planned to come back to earth at their home at Woodbridge, south of Hobart, walking his dog, George.

"No regrets," he said."I'm trying to give a future to our kids.  If I can lead the way, great."

He said the jail he was held in reminded him of convict-era Port Arthur in Tasmania.

"Just walking inside those walls," he said. "It's very run down,everything was ... dirty. The first floor of Murmansk jail had TB in it, and AIDS."

Despite the conditions, he said the Russians treated the Arctic 30 very well.

"I lost quite a few kilos, which I put back on again. Mentally I was fine. I like to read and I was occupying my mind.

"I did have a young Russian fellow in the cell with me who wasn't sane ... only a youngster. He didn't read. He was mentally not handling it."

Mr Russell said he questioned his own future briefly when he was refused bail, unlike the other 29, and stayed behind bars until his release on appeal after a total 71 days.

But he said he was kept informed by his lawyers. "And I saw the people from the (Australian) consulate. Those people are just gems."

He said he planned to take a five month break and then would resume work on Greenpeace ships.      

"Maybe I won't be doing naughty things in Russia for a while," he said.

Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/national/greenpeace-activist-colin-russell-arrives-home-20140103-30873.html#ixzz2pH0Vk8Iw

Me too!

Should have left them spend a few more months in the rat infested Russian gaol!!

They broke Russian law, they do Russian time.

Pity Putin has gone all soft trying to raise his world profile for the games