Norwegian police have brought a ship into port in Tromsø on Friday, which is suspected of having been involved in cable sabotage in the Baltic Sea. The ship "Silver Dania" is Norwegian-owned and registered in Norway, Troms Police District writes in a press release. The vessel, whose crew of 11 is Russian, is suspected of having been involved in sabotage, it says.
- There is a suspicion that the ship has been involved in serious damage to a fiber cable in the Baltic Sea between Latvia and Sweden, the police write.
The police are present on the ship to search it, secure clues and question the crew. The ship has been brought into port based on a request from Latvian authorities. It concerns damage to a cable "last weekend", says Deputy Police Chief Einar Sparboe Lysnes at a press conference according to NRK. The police will not elaborate on what will be investigated on board the ship.
On Sunday, an underwater cable between Sweden and Latvia was damaged. In the evening, the Swedish intelligence service Säpo seized a vessel suspected of involvement in sabotage. The Swedish media Expressen wrote that it was the ship "Vezhen", which is registered in Malta.
Norwegian-owned ship
The Norwegian ship "Silver Dania" is sailing between St. Petersburg in the heart of the Baltic Sea and Murmansk, which is the world's largest city north of the Arctic Circle. Both cities are Russian. The sailing route goes via the Baltic Sea and the North Sea.
The Norwegian ship arrived at the port of Tromsø on Friday morning at 6:40 a.m. after an operation that began on Thursday evening, writes Norwegian police, who received help from the coast guard.
Both the crew and the shipping company are cooperating with the Norwegian authorities, and the crew agreed to sail to Tromsø themselves, it continues.
"Silver Dania" is owned by the Norwegian shipping company Silver Sea in Bergen. According to the Norwegian business media Fiskeribladet, the shipping company is the only one in the country that continues to cooperate with Russia. "Silver Dania" has sailed with fish to Murmansk several times since 2022, when Russia invaded Ukraine, writes Fiskeribladet.
Shipping company denies
The shipping company's boss, Tormod Fossmark, denies to the AFP news agency that the ship has been involved in cable sabotage. He confirms that the ship was in the area of the Baltic Sea where the cable broke on Sunday. But the ship did not drop anchor there, he says.
- We have done nothing wrong. The Norwegian authorities have brought us into port to clear us of suspicion, says Tormod Fossmark.
In previous cases, a cable has been damaged by a ship dragging an anchor across the seabed.
/ritzau/
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