A Finnish court has dismissed the charges against the captain and two officers of the tanker Eagle S, who were accused of damaging subsea infrastructure in the Gulf of Finland in December 2024, writes Splash.
According to the prosecution, the ship had dragged its anchor 90 km across the seabed, thereby destroying the Estlink 2 power cable between Finland and Estonia and four data cables. The crew denied guilt and explained that the anchor had dropped due to technical faults.
The court determined that the damage occurred in international waters, and that Finnish criminal law therefore could not be applied. Consequently, the claims for damages amounting to millions of euros also lapsed.
The case was one of several incidents involving damage to cables and pipelines in the Baltic Sea since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, which has prompted NATO to increase surveillance of the region’s critical infrastructure as a defense against the hybrid war being waged against Denmark and Europe by Russia.
-emte
