28 August 2024 , 19:13
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Italian prosecutors said to be investigating engineer and sailor as well as captain over sinking in which seven died
Italian prosecutors are investigating two more crew members from the British tech tycoon Mike Lynch’s yacht, along with its captain, in connection with the vessel’s sinking more than a week ago, a judicial source has said.
Lynch and six other people were killed when the British-flagged Bayesian, a 56-metre (184ft) yacht, capsized and sank off the coast of Porticello, a fishing village near Palermo in Sicily, in the early hours of 19 August, within minutes of being hit by a pre-dawn storm.
On Monday the boat’s 51-year-old captain, James Cutfield, a New Zealander, was put under investigation for manslaughter and shipwreck.
The ship engineer Tim Parker Eaton and the sailor Matthew Griffith were being investigated, the source said on Wednesday. Being investigated in Italy does not imply guilt and does not mean formal charges will follow.
The victims of the Bayesian’s sinking included Lynch and his 18-year-old daughter, Hannah. Fifteen people survived including Lynch’s wife, whose company owned the Bayesian.
Notices to people under investigation need to be sent out before authorities can carry out autopsies. The autopsies on the seven victims of the sinking would be done at the institute of forensic medicine of the Policlinico hospital in Palermo, sources said.
Cutfield, who was questioned by the prosecutors on Monday, has chosen not to respond. The captain’s legal representatives stated that their client declined to reply to questions from investigators for two main reasons: “Firstly because he is very distressed,” and secondly “because we were appointed yesterday, and to articulate a comprehensive and correct defence strategy we need to acquire a series of data that we currently do not possess.”
Prosecutors in Termini Imerese declined to comment when contacted by the Guardian.
The surviving passengers left Sicily on a private jet on Sunday. Members of the yacht’s crew remained on the island and could face further questioning by prosecutors in the coming days.
The prosecutor’s office has been examining videos and photographs taken by local people on the night of the storm, as well as surveillance camera footage. In recent days the coastguard has visited all private homes and public places with surveillance cameras.
Experts are baffled by how the Bayesian sank within 60 seconds. Italian officials said it would be difficult to investigate the sinking fully if the wreck was not recovered.
Officials suggested that the passengers who died were probably asleep, “whereas the others who survived weren’t”.
Alongside Lynch and his daughter, the dead were the yacht’s chef, Recaldo Thomas; Morgan Stanley International’s bank chair, Jonathan Bloomer; his wife, Judy; Chris Morvillo, a Clifford Chance lawyer, and his wife, Neda.