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24th August 2024
10:22am BST
Italian prosecutors have confirmed a manslaughter investigation is underway following the sinking of the Bayesian superyacht.
The vessel sank in the early hours of Monday morning (August 19), off the coast of Sicily, killing seven people.
Amongst the dead were British tech tycoon Mike Lynch, 39, and his 18-year-old daughter Hannah, whose body was the final one to be recovered from the wreckage
The others victims were Morgan Stanley chairman Jonathan Bloomer, his wife Judy, American lawyer Chris Morvillo, his wife Neda, and the yacht's on-board chef Reclado Thomas.
Announcing the investigation into the sinking at a press conference on Saturday morning, Termini Imerese prosecutor Ambrogio Cartosio said "behaviours that were not perfectly in order" may have been behind the number of deaths.
Investigators will focus on "the extent all the people [on board] were warned" of safety procedures, he said.
He added that all lines of inquiry are being considered though and they are not investigating anyone specifically at the moment, Sky News reports.
The vessel will be retrieved from the sea floor, but it is not yet clear how long that will take, Raffaele Macauda, deputy commander of the Palermo coastguard, said.
Bentivoglio Fiandra, chief of Palermo's fire brigade and part of the divers' rescue team, told reporters that the Bayesian sank stern-first before rolling onto its right side.
The victims had therefore sought refuge on the left side of the boat, where the last air pockets remained.
Five of the bodies were found in the first cabin on the left, whilst Hannah's body was in the third cabin.
Thomas's body was recovered from the sea.
Fifteen people survived the sinking, including a one-year-old child and Hannah's mother and Mike's wife Angela Bacares.
It is thought the family had organised the trip to celebrate the end of the billionaire's legal troubles. He had been a co-defendant in a US fraud case surrounding the $11bn sale of his company Autonomy to Hewlett Packard in 2011.
Lynch and co-defendant Stephen Chamberlain faced charges of fraud and conspiracy for allegedly scheming to inflate the company’s value before it was sold.
After a case that lasted 12 years, they were both acquitted of all charges by a jury in San Francisco in June.
Earlier this month, Chamberlain died after he was hit by a car whilst out for a run in Cambridgeshire.
