site.btaForeign Minister: Bulgarian Consul in Sweden Boarded the Ship Vezhen after It Was Detained by Local Police

The head of the consular office in Stockholm has boarded the ship Vezhen, the Minister of Foreign Affairs Georg Georgiev told reporters here on Saturday. The consul has been in contact with the ship's captain and the rest of the crew all along, as their communication has not been restricted at any point.

Georgiev said: "Our crew has not been detained, has not been restrained, no measures have been taken against them. We have not let the situation out of our sight for a moment."

On January 27, the Swedish Prosecution Authority said that it launched a preliminary investigation on suspicion of sabotage, after the detention of Vezhen in the Baltic Sea, as it was suspected of damaging an underwater fibre optic cable connecting Latvia and the Swedish island of Gotland.

The head of Bulgaria's State Agency for National Security Plamen Tonchev told MPs on Thursday that there currently is no evidence to support a sabotage hypothesis, but "work continues on all versions".

Another vessel, the Norwegian ship Silver Dania with an all-Russian crew that was suspected of damaging the same cable, was released, as no evidence to link it to the incident had been found, the Norwegian authorities said quoted by Reuters.

On January 27, Alexander Kalchev, the CEO of Navibulgar, the company responsible for Vezhen, said that while the ship's anchor may have damaged the cable, it was no act of sabotage, as the anchor's guillotine-type stopper was likely damaged by the stormy weather and sea waves reaching as high as 3 metres.