Copenhagen, Oct 13, (dpa/GNA) – The Swedish public prosecutor’s office is dropping its sabotage investigation, into damage to a communications cable in the depths of the Baltic Sea.
The anchor of a suspect ship did damage to the cable between Sweden and Latvia, but this was not done intentionally, the prosecutor in charge, Mats Ljungqvist, said on Monday.
“The investigation clearly shows that the cable break was caused by a combination of rough weather conditions, technical defects and presumably poor seamanship on the ship in question,” Ljungqvist confirmed.
He made similar statements about the case some time ago. He now stated that the investigation had concluded that it was an accident. The preliminary investigations by Sweden into the freighter are therefore now formally closed.
Around the turn of the year, there were repeated reports of damage to undersea cables and lines in the Baltic Sea, with ships from the so-called Russian shadow fleet coming under suspicion.
In the most sensational cases, there were frequent suspicions of serious sabotage using ship anchors, including in the case of the data cable between Sweden and Latvia, where damage was discovered on January 26.
Shortly afterwards, a ship was detained, but it was released after a week, with Ljungqvist stating that the suspicion of serious sabotage had not been confirmed.
GNA