Rome: Italian prosecutors will investigate the captain of the super yacht belonging to British tech magnate Mike Lynch that sank off Sicily last week during an intense storm, killing Lynch and six other people, Italian media reports said on Monday.
Being placed under investigation in Italy does not imply guilt and does not mean formal charges will necessarily follow.
An Italian Firefighters helicopter flies over the harbour of Porticello, southern Italy.Credit: AP
James Cutfield, a 51-year-old New Zealand national, is being investigated for manslaughter and shipwreck, the dailies La Repubblica and Corriere della Sera said.
Magistrates spoke to Cutfield on Sunday for the second time in a week, la Repubblica reported, questioning him for more than two hours. It said prosecutors may also investigate a crew member who was on duty when the storm hit and survived the incident.
The British-flagged Bayesian, a 56-metre-long super yacht, was carrying 22 people when it capsized and sank last Monday within minutes of being hit by a pre-dawn storm while anchored off northern Sicily.
Fifteen people survived, including Lynch’s wife, whose company owned the Bayesian. Lynch’s 18-year-old daughter, Hannah, was among those who died.
Hannah and Mike Lynch were among those who died on the yacht.
While the yacht had been hit by a sudden meteorological event, it was plausible that crimes of multiple manslaughter and causing a shipwreck through negligence had been committed, the head of the public prosecutor’s office of Termini Imerese, Ambrogio Cartosio, said on Saturday.
Maritime law gives a captain full responsibility for the ship, crew, and all on board.
Discussion about this post