site.btaBulgarian Embassy in Sweden In Contact with Local Authorities Regarding Detained Bulgarian Crew

The Embassy of the Republic of Bulgaria in Stockholm is in contact with the relevant Swedish authorities and is actively following the development of the case, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs told BTA on Monday.

This comes after the Swedish prosecution service reported on Sunday that they have opened a preliminary investigation into suspected aggravated sabotage.  They have also ordered the detention of the ship Vezhen in the Baltic Sea. The vessel is suspected of damaging an underwater fibre optic cable connecting Latvia and the Swedish island of Gotland earlier on Sunday.

The ship is sailing under the Maltese flag and has an eight-men crew comprised of Bulgarians, including the captain, Anton Atanasov.

The Ministry said that any new details they receive on the case will be reported in due course.

Senior prosecutor at the National Security Unit Mats Ljungqvist, quoted by Associated Press, said that several authorities, including the National Police Operations Department, the Coast Guard and the Armed Forces, are involved in the investigation.

Navigation Maritime Bulgare (Navibulgar) CEO Alexander Kalchev told reporters on Monday: "It is possible that the Vezhen caused the cable to break between Gotland and Latvia, but in any case, I personally do not believe that it was sabotage or any other [malicious] act on the part of our crew." Kalchev added that according to the report from the vessel, it was sailing on the evening of January 25 in extremely bad weather with winds of up to 25 m/s.

While it was impossible to inspect the vessel at night, the crew did go out on the deck on Sunday morning around 8:30 Bulgarian time and established that the left anchor had been dislodged. Kalchev alleged that the mechanism meant to prevent the unintentional dislodge had been damaged by the bad weather and the strong waves.

The CEO of Navibulgar said that the automatic ship identification system confirmed that the ship's route did go above the damaged cable, however, it is yet to be confirmed whether the cable was damaged at the time when Vezhen was sailing above it.