A district court in Helsinki, Finland, has ruled that Finland does not have jurisdiction to prosecute the captain and two other crew members of the tanker "Eagle S" in a case of vandalism against underwater cables in the Baltic Sea.
This is reported by Reuters.
The three people - the ship's captain and first and second officers - were charged in August with "gross vandalism and gross disruption of communication lines".
The crew members of the "Eagle S" are suspected of having damaged five underwater cables in the Gulf of Finland by dragging the ship's anchor across the seabed for about 90 kilometers.
This happened on December 25, 2024. The "Estlink 2" power cable, which runs between Finland and Estonia, and several data cables were damaged.
The defendants have pleaded not guilty. These are two Georgians and an Indian citizen.
The Finnish prosecution has previously said that the defendants believe that Finland does not have jurisdiction to prosecute the case because the damage to the cables occurred outside Finnish territorial waters.
- The District Court has today issued a judgment dismissing the indictment in the case and the claims for damages related to the indictment, as it was not possible to apply Finnish criminal law in the case, the court writes according to Reuters.
It is unclear why the Finnish legal system, according to the court, does not have jurisdiction to decide the case, and whether this is because "Eagle S" was not in Finnish waters when the cable breaks occurred.
"Eagle S" is registered in the Cook Islands, but is suspected of belonging to Russia's shadow fleet. The shadow fleet consists of ships that Russia uses to circumvent international sanctions imposed after Russia's invasion of Ukraine.
Before the ship sailed through the Gulf of Finland in December, it had set sail from St. Petersburg, Russia.
The ship had a crew of 24 people.
/ritzau/
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