HONG KONG: The Chinese language captain of a Hong Kong‑registered cargo ship pleaded not responsible on Wednesday (Feb 11) to a cost of prison harm, following allegations that his vessel damaged undersea cables in the Baltic Sea.
Wan Wenguo, 44, the captain of the container ship NewNew Polar Bear, is alleged to have broken an underwater pure gasoline pipeline and submarine telecom cables between Finland and Estonia on Oct 8, 2023, in accordance with a Hong Kong cost sheet reviewed by Reuters.
The cost sheet said that Wan had been “reckless” and “with out lawful excuse broken the property belonging to a different”.
Finnish investigators mentioned the container vessel had dragged its anchor to sever the Balticconnector gasoline pipeline. Finnish police later retrieved a damaged anchor from the seabed close to the pipeline, and technical examinations confirmed it belonged to the container vessel that was lacking a entrance anchor.
A lawyer for Wan, Jerry Chung, earlier mentioned 18 prosecution witnesses could be referred to as to testify within the case that features one cost of prison harm, in addition to two fees of failing to make sure the ship complied with security necessities underneath the Worldwide Conference for the Security of Life at Sea.
Wan additionally pleaded not responsible to these two fees.
These witnesses embody crew members, Hong Kong officers, and consultants in maritime issues, Chung added.
The Baltic Sea area has been on excessive alert for sabotage after a collection of outages involving energy cables, gasoline pipelines and telecom hyperlinks since Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022. NATO has boosted its navy presence with frigates, plane and naval drones.
