A Swedish court acquitted two documentaries of desecration after underwater images of the Estonian ferry wreck raised new questions about the cause of Europe’s worst peacetime disaster in peacetime.
Henrik Evertsson and Linus Andersson sent a remotely operated submersible to the ship, which sank in the Baltic Sea in September 1994, with the loss of 852 lives, and was designated a cemetery by Finland, Sweden and Estonia a year later.
The footage revealed a huge hole in the side of the ship, casting doubt on the results of an official investigation into the wreck, but Evertsson and Andersson were accused by Sweden of violating the sanctity of the wreck.
The Gothenburg district court concluded on Monday that the two Swedes, who could have faced heavy fines or even two years in prison, “committed acts that are punishable under the so-called Estonian Law”, but could not be punished because in time they were on a German flag ship in international waters.
The court said Germany “was not bound by the agreement” reached between three countries – Sweden, Estonia and Finland – which declared the wreck inviolable, and the ship the team used to send its robot in September 2019 was “seen as territory. German ”.
A 1997 international report concluded that Estonia, which made a routine overnight crossing from Tallinn to Stockholm carrying 803 passengers and 186 crew members, sank after its bow doors were opened in a heavy storm, flooding the car deck.
Any suggestion that the ship was punctured was dismissed, but the survivors insisted that they heard and felt a loud metallic crash about 50 minutes before the ship sank about 80 meters deep. Only 138 people were rescued and only 93 bodies recovered.
Groups representing the victims’ families have long called for a new investigation, saying the crash – and the extraordinary speed with which the ship sank – were consistent with a collision that caused underwater damage to Estonia’s hull. Others blamed an explosion, which was also ruled out by a 2005 investigation.
The team’s discovery + documentary, released last year, showed a hole 4 meters high and 1.2 meters long on the starboard side of the ship, which experts say was probably caused by a collision with an object weighing between 1,000 and 5,000 tons, traveling between two and four. we.
The filmmakers’ findings sparked a flurry of diplomatic activities, with the chancellors of Estonia, Finland and Sweden issuing a joint statement agreeing that “the new information presented in the documentary will be verified”.
Estonia’s prime minister said last year that the film “raises questions that need to be answered” and in December Sweden announced plans to amend the law to allow a review of the wreckage.