Finland court convicts Russian captain, Azerbaijani crew member over Baltic Sea cable damage

A Finnish court on Thursday jailed the Russian captain and an Azerbaijani crew member of the cargo ship Fitburg for ‌aggravated sabotage over damage to two subsea telecommunications cables in the Gulf of Finland last year.

Finland on December 31 seized the vessel in the Gulf of Finland while it was en route from Russia to ‌Israel, on suspicion that it had damaged cables running from Helsinki to Estonia. The Helsinki District Court ‌sentenced the captain to 3 years and 6 months in prison and the crew member to 2 years and 10 months. It said in a statement the two acted intentionally when the ship dragged an anchor chain and anchor shank ⁠along the seabed ​for around 130 ⁠km (81 miles).

Finland has intensified efforts to protect its undersea infrastructure following a string of incidents affecting cables and pipelines in the ⁠Baltic Sea since 2022, including a vessel-boarding drill it conducted in September. The captain will appeal the verdict, while ​the crew member has not yet decided whether to do so, their respective lawyers said.

The court ⁠also ordered the two defendants to jointly pay around €1.9 million ($2.1 million) in damages, and ordered the captain to pay about €85,000 more, ⁠the ​verdict showed. The seized vessel, sailing under Saint Vincent and the Grenadines' flag, was en route from the Russian port of St Petersburg to Israel at the time of the incident. The ⁠ship has since been released.

The defendants, who have remained in Finland subject to travel bans, have denied ⁠any wrongdoing and have ⁠challenged Finland's jurisdiction in the case. The 14 crew members of the vessel were nationals of Russia, Georgia, Kazakhstan and Azerbaijan, investigators have said.

($1 = 0.8880 euros)