Italy opens murder and manslaughter case after superyacht sinking

“We have opened an investigation against unknown persons on charges of manslaughter and culpable homicide,” prosecutor Ambrogio Cartosio told a news conference in the Sicilian town of Termini Imerese on Saturday morning.

The previous Monday the Bayesian superyacht sank off the coast of Porticello, a small town on the coast near Sicily’s capital Palermo.

Seven of the 22 people on board lost their lives in the shipwreck, among them British technology magnate Mike Lynch and his daughter Hannah.

Cartosio confirmed the start of the investigation, but said no suspects had been identified at the moment.

“We are only in the initial phase of the investigation. At the moment we cannot rule out any kind of development,” Cartosio said. He went on to say that his team will carefully assess every possible element of liability, including those of the ship’s captain, crew, supervisors, the ship’s builder and others.

“For me, it is likely that crimes were committed, that it could be a case of manslaughter, but we will only be able to establish that if you give us time to investigate,” he said, explaining that the crew members will be allowed to leave Sicily but may be re-investigated.

The downburst hypothesis against the Bayesian

The main issue investigators are focusing on is how a sailing ship deemed ‘unsinkable’ by its builder, the Italian shipyard Perini Navi, sank while a neighbouring sailboat was essentially unharmed.

Prosecutors said the event was ‘extremely rapid’ and the information acquired seemed to indicate a ‘downburst’, a localised and powerful wind that descends from a thunderstorm and spreads rapidly once it hits the ground.**

Initially, Civil Defence officials said they believed the yacht, which had a distinctive 75-metre aluminium mast, had been hit by a tornado on the water, known as a waterspout.

When will the Bayesian be recovered

Investigators also questioned why the crew almost completely survived, with the exception of the chef, while six passengers were trapped in the hull.

Girolamo Bentivoglio, the new commander of the Palermo fire brigade, confirmed that most of the recovered bodies were found in the same part of the ship – on the port side and closer to the surface – suggesting that the passengers had sought safety in the cabins where the last air bubbles had formed.

Deputy prosecutor Raffaele Cammarano said it is likely that the passengers were asleep, adding that one of the main objectives of the investigation is to ascertain whether they were alerted by someone. Cammarano also confirmed that one person was on watch in the cockpit.

“The timeframe for bringing the yacht back to the surface is uncertain: it all depends on the will of the owners, owners and management company. The maritime authority will manage the operation with its own technicians, but at the moment we are still in the preliminary stage: we will impose the securing of the vessel by emptying the tanks,” said Palermo Coast Guard Commander Raffaele Macauda. However, Cartosio said that the first suspects could be announced even before the wreck is recovered.

Who are the victims of the shipwreck

On Friday, rescuers washed ashore the last of the seven bodies of the Bayesian shipwreck. Among them was Hannah Lynch, 18, daughter of Mike Lynch, whose body was recovered on Thursday. The man had celebrated his recent acquittal from fraud charges with his family and those who had defended him at the US trial. His wife, Angela Bacares, is among the 15 survivors.

Rescuers struggled for four days to find all the bodies, slowly making their way inside the wreckage that lay on the seabed at a depth of 50 metres.

The other five victims are Christopher Morvillo, one of Lynch’s US lawyers, and his wife, Neda; Jonathan Bloomer, president of Morgan Stanley’s London branch, and his wife, Judy; and Recaldo Thomas, the yacht’s cook.