MOSCOW, Nov. 14 (UPI) -- British musician Paul McCartney said he wrote a letter to Russian President Vladimir Putin asking him to release the jailed Greenpeace activists.
"Vladimir, millions of people in dozens of countries would be hugely grateful if you were to intervene to bring about an end to this affair," McCartney wrote in the letter, dated Thursday.
Twenty-eight Greenpeace activists and two journalists have been detained since September after some of the activists attempted to climb an oil rig owned by Gazprom, a state-controlled energy company.
The 30 detainees were initially accused of piracy but the charge later was reduced to hooliganism, which carries a maximum sentence of seven years in prison.
The activists were moved this week to separate detention facilities in St. Petersburg, RIA Novosti said, and were scheduled to appear at a hearing Nov. 24.
In the letter, McCartney argued the protest was peaceful, and referenced the Beatles' hit "Back in the USSR."
"'Been away so long I hardly knew the place, gee it's good to be back home,'" McCartney wrote. "Could you make that come true for the Greenpeace prisoners?"
Putin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told RIA Novosti the letter has yet to arrive.
