Bulgarian shipping company denies vessel sabotaged Baltic Sea cable
Navibulgar’s chief executive said it was possible that the Vezhen ship had caused a cable to break, but dismissed any possibility of sabotage.
A Bulgarian shipping company has denied that one of its ships intentionally damaged an underwater fibre optic cable connecting Latvia and the Swedish island of Gotland.
Swedish prosecutors announced on Sunday night that they had launched a preliminary investigation on suspicion of sabotage after the ship was detained in the Baltic Sea.
Navibulgar chief executive Alexander Kalchev said it was possible that the Vezhen ship had caused a cable to break, but dismissed any possibility of sabotage or any other action on the part of the crew.
He cited information obtained from the crew that the ship was sailing late on Sunday in extremely bad weather.
Eventually, the crew discovered that the left anchor was apparently being dragged along the seabed.
Mr Kalchev’s statement followed the announcement that Swedish prosecutors had launched a preliminary investigation on suspicion of sabotage, after the ship was detained in the Baltic Sea.
He added that the automatic ship identification system clearly showed that the Vezhen passed over the cable, and that it was not clear when exactly it was cut.
Mr Kalchev said: “I hope that the investigators will quickly establish that this is not a matter of any intentional action, but a technical incident due to bad weather, and that the ship will be released.”
The Maltese-flagged Vezhen was sailing to South America, loaded with fertiliser. The 32,000-tonne vessel was launched in 2022, Mr Kalchev added.
The Swedish public prosecutor’s office said it was now carrying out a number of specific investigative measures. Authorities including the National Police Operations Department, the Coast Guard and the Armed Forces are involved in the investigation, senior prosecutor Mats Ljungqvist said in a statement.
