Sweden rules out sabotage in Baltic undersea data cable rupture and releases a ship

STOCKHOLM — Swedish prosecutors decided Monday to release a vessel belonging to a Bulgarian shipping company after ruling out initial suspicions that sabotage caused damage to an undersea fiber-optic cable between Sweden and Latvia.

Damage to the cable running between the Latvian city of Ventspils and the Swedish island of Gotland was detected on Jan. 26 and the vessel was seized by Swedish authorities later that day. This was one of a string of recent incidents of ruptured undersea cables that have heightened fears of Russian sabotage and spying in the region.

An investigation into a possible role of the Vezhen ship “has clarified that it is not a case of gross sabotage,” the prosecutors said in a statement.

Senior prosecutor Mats Ljungqvist said the ship did cause the cable break, but after crime-scene investigations, analyses of confiscated equipment, and the collection of testimonies, “we can say with certainty that this is not a case of sabotage.”

“An investigation is continuing to find out whether other crimes may have been responsible for the cable break,” the statement said.

The Bulgarian shipping company, Navibulgar, had denied that one of its ships had intentionally damaged the cable.

There have been previous incidents reported of ruptures of data cables running on the Baltic Sea bed, allegedly linked to Russia’s shadow fleet — hundreds of aging tankers of uncertain ownership that dodge sanctions and keep oil revenue coming into the country.

Navibulgar had cited crew accounts that the ship had been sailing in extremely bad weather and that its left anchor was apparently dragging along the seabed.

On Friday, authorities in neighboring Norway inspected a Norwegian-owned and Russian-crewed ship, the Silver Dana, that authorities initially suspected may have been involved in damage to the cable, but later released the vessel. Norwegian police said no findings had been made that would have linked the ship to the act.