Consular support for Aussie in Russian detention

Australian consular officials have met a Greenpeace activist detained in Russia, passing on messages from his family and checking on his welfare.

Colin Russell from Australia being escorted into a court in the northern Russian city of Murmansk

Australian consular officials have met a Greenpeace activist detained in Russia, passing on messages from his family and checking on his welfare.

Tasmanian Colin Russell is among 30 people who have been detained for two months while Russian authorities investigate a protest on September the 19th by the Greenpeace vessel, Arctic Sunrise.

Greenpeace strongly rejects claims the activists are guilty of piracy after they used inflatable boats to scale an offshore oil platform which was owned by the Russian state-owned energy giant, Gazprom.

Greenpeace Australia's Ben Pearson has told Michael Kenny the activists never posed any safety risk to the workers on the oil platform.

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