Italy opens manslaughter investigation into Sicily yacht sinking

Italian prosecutors said Saturday they have opened an investigation into culpable shipwreck and manslaughter over the deaths of seven people in a yacht that sank off the coast of Sicily this week.

The British-flagged Bayesian sank in a storm off the northern coast of Sicily, after encountering what authorities called a “violent storm” early Monday, and dropped to a depth of more than 160 feet. British tech entrepreneur Mike Lynch and his teenage daughter Hannah were among those who died.

Ambrogio Cartosio, the head of the public prosecutor’s office of Termini Imerese, told a news conference Saturday that an investigation had begun but that no suspect has been identified.

“We are only in the initial phase of the investigation. We can’t exclude any sort of development at present,” he said, adding that “it is probable that offenses were committed, that it could be a case of manslaughter,” according to a translation by the Associated Press.

Cartosio said the captain, crew and passengers are under no legal obligation to remain in Italy, but authorities expect them to cooperate with the probe, Reuters news agency reported.

Fifteen people, including Lynch’s wife and Hannah’s mother, Angela Bacares, were rescued shortly after the 183-foot vessel sank.

The body of the yacht’s chef, Recaldo Thomas, was recovered during initial search efforts.

Four bodies were pulled from the wreckage Wednesday. They were identified as those of two couples: Jonathan Bloomer, chairman of Morgan Stanley International; Judy Bloomer, a charity trustee; Chris Morvillo, a partner at the law firm Clifford Chance in New York; and Neda Morvillo, a jeweler.

Mike Lynch’s body was recovered Thursday, while the final body, that of his daughter Hannah, was recovered from the hull Friday.

The Bayesian is owned by a company controlled by Bacares, and several of the passengers had business or legal ties to Lynch. Chris Morvillo represented Lynch in a recently concluded legal battle. The voyage was intended to be a celebration of Lynch’s acquittal in the United States of fraud charges, Britain’s Telegraph newspaper reported.

Lynch, 59, co-founded Autonomy, once Britain’s largest software company, and the cybersecurity firm Darktrace, among other ventures.

He sold Autonomy to Hewlett-Packard in 2011 for more than $11 billion but was subsequently accused of overvaluing the company and charged by the United States with fraud. He was acquitted on all counts by a federal court in San Francisco in June.