A court in Finland ruled today that he had no jurisdiction to prosecute the master and two Eagle S tanker officers who were accused of cutting underwater energy and telecommunications cables in the Baltic Sea in Pemoseno. .

Finland has said that the Eagle S belongs to a shadow fleet of tankers used by Russia to bypass sanctions on its oil exports. The December 25th event was one of a series of events that caused damage to cables and gas pipelines in the Baltic Sea, after Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022, with NATO forces in the region in a state of high alarm. Russia refuses to engage in cable cutting.

“The court today issued a ruling by rejecting the case in the case … along with claims on damage resulting from the charge, as the Finnish criminal law could not be implemented in the case,” the court said in a statement.

Under the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, the power to prosecute a criminal offense belongs to the flag country or the countries of origin of the defendants, the court added.

The ship carried the flag of Kuk islands.

The trial is one of the first judicial efforts to punish any damage to critical importance of underwater infrastructure, but it is complicated by forecasts of international sea law and the difficulty of proved to be a criminal intention. The three crew members denied the charges.

The decision is appealing.

The defendants spoke of a technical error

The tanker, carrying Russian oil, dragged its anchor, weighing 11,000kg, on a ride of about 90 kilometers to the bottom of the Gulf of Finland, cutting off the energy cable connecting Finland to Estlink 2 and Estlink 2.

Finland has accused the Georgian master, as well as the Georgian first officer and the ship’s second officer of the ship, for distinguished deterioration of foreign property and distinguished obstruction of communications.

The charges were for gross negligence on the part of the crew in terms of the poor status of the ship’s anchor, rather than a solid proof that Ankara was deliberately fell to cause damage, according to court documents.

The defendants said in the trial that the ship’s baroluk fell without being noticed due to technical errors in Varulko that was supposed to keep Ankara in its place.

They also rejected the claims of the cable owners for millions of euros in losses.

The prosecutor had asked the court to impose a sentence of at least two and a half years in prison on each of the defendants.

The court has reached the travel ban on the defendants at the end of the trial in September and they have since left Finland. No charges have been brought against the ship’s owner, which was released from Finnish curator in March.