site.btaNo Data Pointing towards Sabotage at Present, National Security Agency Head Says on Bulgarian Ship Detained by Sweden

There currently is no data to support a sabotage hypothesis, but work continues on all versions, State Agency for National Security  (SANS) head Plamen Tonchev said in Parliament on Thursday. He was given a hearing on the detention of the Vezhen, a Maltese-flagged Bulgarian vessel, by Swedish authorities on Sunday on suspicion of sabotage following a breach of an undersea fibre-optic cable connecting Latvia and the Swedish island of Gotland.

SANS is in contact with Bulgaria's partners in NATO and the Swedish and Latvian services looking into the incident, Tonchev said. All actions needed for the investigation are being carried out at the partners' request, Tonchev underscored.

He explained that there is no negative information about the eight Bulgarian crew members and the ship's management, which is entirely Bulgarian.

In addition to Latvia's state-owned cable, also breached are cables owned by a country unfriendly towards NATO, Tonchev specified.