Deutsche Tageszeitung - Finnish police probing seven sailors over cut cables

Finnish police probing seven sailors over cut cables


Finnish police probing seven sailors over cut cables
Finnish police probing seven sailors over cut cables / Photo: © Lehtikuva/AFP

Finnish police said Tuesday that seven sailors from the Eagle S tanker suspected of last week cutting an undersea power cable between Finland and Estonia are targets of a sabotage investigation and have been banned from leaving the country.

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"Seven members of the Eagle S crew have the status of suspect in this criminal investigation and have been served with a travel ban," Finnish police said in a statement, referring to the oil tanker being held in Finnish waters in the Baltic Sea pending the investigation.

On Christmas Day, the Estlink 2 submarine cable that carries electricity from Finland to Estonia was suddenly disconnected from the grid, just over a month after two telecommunications cables were severed in Swedish territorial waters in the Baltic.

Finnish authorities have been investigating the Eagle S oil tanker that sailed from a Russian port over suspected "sabotage" after it was found nearby missing its anchor.

Investigators said Sunday they found a track on the seabed dozens in kilometres in length but have yet to find the anchor.

The Cook Islands-flagged Eagle S oil tanker

is currently in Porvoo, a town some 40 kilometres (25 miles) east of Helsinki, in the south of the Nordic nation.

(V.Sørensen--DTZ)