MURMANSK, October 11 (RAPSI) - The Murmansk region court of Friday rejected the appeals filed by the defense of Philip Edward Boll (UK) and John Kieron Bryan (UK), who were arrested as a part of Greenpeace raid on Gazprom drilling platform, RAPSI reports from the courtroom.

On Tuesday the court also rejected similar appeals filed by the defense of photographer Denis Sinyakov, ship's doctor Yekaterina Zasp and Greenpeace Russia press attache Andrei Allahverdov.

On October 14, the Murmansk court will hear the appeals of Camila Especiale (Argentina) and Christian D'Allesandro(Italy).

The Arctic Sunrise ship was seized by Russian border guards on September 19 in international waters, within Russia's exclusive economic zone, a day after two Greenpeace activists scaled the Prirazlomnaya drilling rig in the Pechora Sea, the southeastern part of the Barents Sea. Greenpeace claimed that the ship was held under armed guard.

The platform, owned by Gazprom Neft Shelf, a subsidiary of Russian energy giant Gazprom, is the first ice-resistant stationary oil platform in the world set to produce offshore Arctic oil.

Greenpeace and other environmental groups oppose drilling for oil in the Arctic because they say that it is currently impossible to sufficiently clean up potential oil spills in the region, and that such drilling cannot be economically viable without state subsidies.