Captain of sunken Lynch family yacht put under investigation

Captain of sunken Lynch family yacht put under investigation

By Wladimiro Pantaleone

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, one of the captain's lawyers said on Monday.

James Cutfield, a 51-year old New Zealand national, is being investigated for manslaughter and shipwreck, a judicial source said.

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Speaking to Reuters, lawyer Giovanni Rizzuti said Cutfield would next be questioned by prosecutors on Tuesday, and could exercise his right to remain silent. The lawyer added that other crew members were questioned on Monday.

Being placed under investigation in Italy does not imply guilt and does not mean formal charges will necessarily follow. It is still unclear whether other crew members or other people will also be put under investigation.

The British-flagged Bayesian, a 56-metre-long (184-foot) yacht, was carrying 22 people when it capsized and sank on Aug. 19 within minutes of being hit by a pre-dawn storm while anchored off northern Sicily.

Fifteen people survived, including nine out of the 10 crew members and Lynch's wife, whose company owned the Bayesian. Lynch's 18-year-old daughter, Hannah, was one of the six passengers who died, out of a total of 12.

Prosecutors said their investigation would take time, and would require the wreck to be salvaged from the sea. The Bayesian is currently lying on its right side, at a depth of around 50 metres (54.68 yards).

"It is likely that the crimes of culpable shipwreck and manslaughter were committed, it is a question of who should be blamed for them," the chief prosecutor handling the case, Ambrogio Cartosio, said on Saturday.

Maritime law gives a captain full responsibility for the ship, crew, and all on board.

Cutfield and his eight surviving crew members have made no public comment yet on the disaster.

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"The Bayesian was built to go to sea in any weather", Franco Romani, a nautical architect who was part of the team that designed it, told daily La Stampa in an interview published on Monday.

He said the yacht could have taken on water from a side hatch that was left open.