STOCKHOLM, January 31. /TASS/. The Norwegian vessel Silver Dania with an all-Russian crew has been arrested at Latvia’s request on suspicion of sabotaging an optic cable in the Baltic Sea, Norway’s police said in a statement.
"It is suspected that the ship has been involved in serious damage to a fiber cable in the Baltic Sea between Latvia and Sweden," the statement reads. According to it, "Police are now on board the ship to search, carry out interrogations and secure leads." The crew and the shipping company are cooperating with Norwegian authorities, the police added.
The kingdom brought the vessel into the Tromso port after receiving a request from Latvia. The vessel was en route between the northwest Russian seaports of St. Petersburg and Murmansk.
Tormod Fossmark, the owner of the Silver Sea shipping company, argued the vessel "did nothing wrong." "We sailed near [the Swedish island of] Gotland, but we did not cast anchor. We did nothing wrong. The Norwegian authorities have brought us into port to clear us of any involvement," AFP quoted the shipowner as saying.
Latvia’s State Radio and Television Center (LVRTC) reported on January 26 that the undersea fiber optic cable between Latvia and Sweden had been damaged by an external impact. According to the broadcaster, the data transmission monitoring system detected interruptions on the Ventspils-Gotland section. The LVRTC informed the Latvian Navy about the incident.
On January 27, Sweden stopped another vessel, the Bulgarian-owned Vezhen, suspected of damaging the communication cable between Sweden and Latvia in the Baltic Sea. Aleksandar Kalchev, executive director of the state-owned company Bulgarian Marine Fleet, denied the claim that the cable was damaged intentionally after the detention of the Malta-flagged ship.