UK tech entrepreneur Mike Lynch missing after yacht sinks off Sicily

British tech tycoon Mike Lynch, who was acquitted of an $11 billion fraud in a US court in June, was among six people missing after their chartered superyacht was hit by a freak storm Monday and sank off the coast of Sicily, near Palermo. Lynch’s wife was among the 15 people rescued after the yacht sank.

UK businessman Mike Lynch, who was recently acquitted in the United States of an $11 billion fraud, is among those missing Monday after a superyacht sank off southern Italy, according to the head of the Civil Protection Agency.

The 56-meter-long luxury yacht, The Bayesian, had been moored off Porticello, east of Palermo, when the storm swept suddenly up the coast before dawn, tearing through beach clubs and little fishing ports.

Lynch’s wife was among 15 people rescued after the luxury yacht sank amid violent winds and rains off the Sicily coast, according to Salvo Cocina of the Civil Protection Agency, leaving six others missing.

Italian authorities have opened a probe into the incident as the emergency response continued Monday.

Lynch, 59, was acquitted on all charges in a San Francisco court in early June after he was accused of the massive fraud linked to the sale of his software firm Autonomy to Hewlett-Packard.

He co-founded Autonomy in Cambridge in 1996.

A spokesperson for Invoke Capital, another firm he founded, declined to comment.

(AFP)