SYDNEY, N.S. _ A provincial court judge has rejected a Crown application to release the Farley Mowat, the protest vessel seized last month by the RCMP off the coast of Cape Breton.

The Crown applied to have the vessel released from the port in Sydney upon payment of a $50,000 bond.

But no one showed up in court or applied to get the vessel back.

Its captain, Alex Cornelissen, and first mate Peter Hammarstedt are charged with violating the Fisheries Act by getting too close to the annual seal hunt in the Gulf of St. Lawrence.

The lawyer representing the two men says his clients will enter not guilty pleas when they return to court July 2.

The ship is owned by the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society _ but the group says it won't pay to have the vessel released because it considers the bond to be some kind of ransom. © 2008 The Canadian Press