Captain investigated over Sicily yacht sinking: reports

ROME: Italian prosecutors have placed under investigation the captain of the superyacht that sank off Sicily last week in a storm, killing British tech magnate Mike Lynch and six other people, a judicial source said on Monday.James Cutfield, a 51-year old New Zealand national, is being investigated for manslaughter and shipwreck, the source said, confirming earlier reports by Italian media.

Being placed under investigation in Italy does not imply guilt and does not mean formal charges will necessarily follow. Notices to people under investigation need to be sent out before authorities can carry out the autopsies on the bodies of the dead.

The decision was made after Cutfield was interrogated for a second time. Reuters has been unable to contact Cutfield. It is still unclear whether other members of the crew or other people will also be put under investigation along with the captain.

The British-flagged Bayesian, a 56-metre-long yacht, was carrying 22 people when it capsized and sank on Monday within minutes of being hit by a pre-dawn storm while anchored off northern Sicily.

Fifteen people survived, including Lynch’s wife, whose company owned the Bayesian. Lynch’s 18-year-old daughter, Hannah, was among those who died. While the yacht had been hit by a sudden meteorological event, it was plausible that crimes of multiple manslaughter and causing a shipwreck through negligence had been committed, the head of the public prosecutor’s office of Termini Imerese, Ambrogio Cartosio, said on Saturday.