PARIS (AP) — The captain of an oil tanker immobilized off the country’s Atlantic coast which President Emmanuel Macron linked to Russia will go to trial in February over the crew's alleged refusal to cooperate, a French prosecutor said Thursday.

Macron has alleged that the tanker belongs to Russia’s so-called shadow fleet of aging tankers of uncertain ownership that are avoiding Western sanctions over Moscow’s war in Ukraine .

Stéphane Kellenberger, prosecutor of the western port city of Brest, said two Chinese crew members, the captain and the chief mate, who had been detained since Tuesday, were released from police custody. The chief mate has been released without charge.

A preliminary investigation was opened into the crew’s “refusal to cooperate” and “failure to justify the n

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