
The Italian government is probing the tragic accident of a super-luxury yacht and has launched a manslaughter investigation against unknown individuals, days after the yacht, carrying ultra-rich passengers, sank and killed seven people, including the British billionaire Mike Lynch.
Ambrogio Cartosio is leading the team of Termini Imerese prosecutors to investigate the reasons behind the ship’s accident and will look into different things, such as the possibility of culpable homicide, which is the Italian equivalent of manslaughter.
Law enforcement is currently reviewing the videos of the fateful night when the ship was hit by a violent storm that led to its destruction. Reportedly, the cops have already visited all the nearby residences and public spaces with access to cameras to gather different angles of the storm hitting the yacht.
Captain of the ship, James Cutfield, and the first officer Matthew Griffith, both of whom managed to survive the accident, are also being questioned extensively.
Prosecutors suggested that “behaviors that were not perfectly in order” could have contributed to the accident as they prepared to bring the shipwreck up from the sea bed to investigate the matter.
Previously, the CEO of the firm behind the yacht’s manufacturing stated that the ship crew was allegedly responsible for the accident as they did not follow proper storm protocols. The prosecutors have announced that crew members, manufacturers, and people involved in the ship’s supervision could face the music as the investigation unfolds.
The ship sank near Italy on August 19 when the British software tycoon Mike Lynch invited his legal team and other close aides to celebrate his acquittal from a decade-old criminal case in which the computer manufacturing giant HP sued him for inflating his company’s value before selling it to them.
Lynch sold his company, Autonomy, to HP for $11.7 billion in 2011, but the tech firm initiated the lawsuit against him just one year after the deal and sued him for $5 billion in damages. Lynch, who denied these accusations, faced criticism for avoiding the legal system in the US due to his UK citizenship, but the UK government eventually extradited him to America last year to face the legal system. After a decade-long legal battle, Lynch was acquitted of all the 15 charges in July this year.
Among the seven people who died were Jonathan Bloomer, CEO of Morgan Stanley, who testified in favor of Lynch during the HP fraud case; his wife, Judy Bloomer; and Lynch’s daughter, Hannah Lynch.