MOSCOW, October 14 (RAPSI) - The Murmansk region court on Monday turned down the appeal of Arctic Sea's captain Peter Wilcox against his arrest. Previously, similar appeals filed by both foreign and Russian memebrs of the Greenpeace crew were rejected, and the activist will remain in detention throughout the trial.

“I’ve been doing this for 40 years, and never faced a charge like this. If I could start everything over, I’d stay in New York. I have many regrets,” – Wilcox said during a break in hearing of his appeal in Murmansk region court.

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.