The cargo ship Vezhen is anchored outside Karlskrona, Sweden, Monday, after a new cable break in the Baltic Sea. According to tracking sites, the Malta-registered ship Vezhen passed the area of the Latvian fiber cable that was damaged in the Swedish economic zone off Gotland on Sunday. Norwegian police said Friday they had seized a Norwegian-owned ship at Latvia's request over its suspected involvement in damage done to a Baltic Sea cable. EPA-Yonhap
Norwegian police said Friday they had seized a Norwegian-owned ship at Latvia's request over its suspected involvement in damage done to a Baltic Sea cable, but the vessel's owner rejected any wrongdoing.
Nations around the Baltic Sea have scrambled to bolster their defenses after the suspected sabotage of undersea cables in recent months, with some observers blaming Russia.
The Norway-flagged cargo ship, the "Silver Dania," was sailing between Saint Petersburg and Murmansk when Norwegian police stopped it on Thursday evening off the coast of Tromso, in northern Norway.
"The ship is suspected to have been involved in serious damage to a fiber cable in the Baltic Sea between Latvia and Sweden," police said in a statement.
"Police are now on board the ship to search, carry out interrogations and secure leads," it said, adding that the crew and shipowner were cooperating with police.
"The entire crew on board is Russian," police said in the statement.
The ship is owned by the Norwegian group Silver Sea.
The shipowner told AFP the vessel "did nothing wrong."
Sweden and Latvia announced on January 26 that a fiber optic cable, owned by Latvia's state radio and television center and linking the Swedish island of Gotland and Ventspils, Latvia, had been damaged.
The Swedish coast guard seized a Bulgarian ship the same day, the Malta-flagged "Vezhen," as Swedish prosecutors opened an "aggravated sabotage" investigation. (AFP)
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