Superyacht Captain Under Investigation Over Death of Billionaire Mike Lynch and Six Others
Italian prosecutors are investigating the captain of a luxury yacht that sank at almost lightning speed off the coast of Sicily “for manslaughter and shipwreck,” according to local reports confirmed by Reuters.
Autopsies are due to be soon carried out on the bodies of those who died in the disaster, including billionaire U.K. tech magnate Mike Lynch, who was only weeks earlier acquitted of fraud by a U.S. court over the $12 billion sale of his company Autonomy to Hewlett-Packard in 2011. Among the other victims were his 18-year-old daughter Hannah, as well as Lynch’s lawyer and one of his team’s key witnesses during those proceedings.
A New Zealand national, 51-year-old James Cutfield had served as captain of the 184-foot superyacht Bayesian, which sank within just 60 seconds on Aug. 19 after being hit by a “tornadic waterspout” during a storm while moored about half a mile from the port of Palermo.