The captain and two officers of the Eagle S tanker ship accused of cutting five electric and telecommunications cables at the end of 2024 appeared in court in Helsinki, Finland on August 25.
The trial of the Eagle S tanker captain and the two crew members took place at the European District Court for the Environment.
Investigators concluded that the Eagle S dragged its anchor to the seabed, severing the Estlink 2 power cable connecting Finland and Estonia, and four Internet lines, forcing Finnish security forces to intervene in the ship's journey and board the ship by helicopter after ordering the ship to move into Finnish territory.
According to Finnish media, prosecutors in the case accused the crew of deliberately dragging the ship's anchor to the bottom of the sea, causing the above damage. Therefore, the prosecution requested the court to sentence the defendants to a minimum of 2 years and 6 months in prison.
Finnish prosecutor Heidi Nummela said in court that the Eagle S traveled 90km with a crystal mines on the seabed and even appeared to slow down as it passed underground cables.
Without the measures taken by the Finnish authorities, the ship could have continued its journey and caused more damage, said prosecutor Nummela.
The three defendants denied all allegations. Captain Davit Vadatchkoria, a Georgia national, told Finnish public broadcaster YLE that the incident was a maritime accident.
In the August 25 trial, legal adviser to captain Vadatchoria, Tommi Heinonen, said there was no evidence to prove that the damage to the cables was caused by sabotage.
This is not a serious act of sabotage, Heinonen told the court, stressing that it was a maritime accident. Such incidents are not common, but they do happen, he said.
In August, Finnish prosecutors charged the Georgia captain and two Indian sailors with serious criminal sabotage and seriously harassing telecommunications.
The maximum sentence for serious criminal sabotage in Finland is 10 years in prison, while the crime of seriously disturbing telecommunications has a sentence of up to 5 years in prison.
Prosecutors said the damage caused by the Cook Islands-registered tanker poses serious risks to energy and telecommunications supplies in Finland. The total cost of repairs in this cable break is at least 60 million euros.
The defendants said that Finland had no authority in the case because the cables were broken outside Finland's territory. The court affirmed that it would consider this complaint.
Finnish authorities seized the Eagle S oil tanker after the cables were broken and the ship was released in March. However, authorities maintain an exit ban for the captain and two crew members mentioned above.
A lawyer for Caravella LLC FZ - a company based in the United Arab Emirates, owner of Eagle S - also said that Helsinki has no authority to intervene in the case.
NATO allies around the Baltic Sea have been on high alert following a series of cable and gas pipeline disruptions in the region since the Russia-Ukraine conflict broke out in February 2022.
Last week, a Ukrainian was arrested for his involvement in the 2022 attack on the Nord Stream gas pipeline in the Baltic Sea.
