Suspicions BOIL as Manslaughter investigation launched over tragic sinking of Lynch's superyacht

now to such a sad story but it's going to go on and on because there's more and more detail coming out a manslaughter investigation has been opened into the deaths of seven people including the British Tech Tycoon Mike Lynch and his daughter Hannah that's after his luxury super yacht sank off the coast of Sicily now the public prosecutor on the case confirmed the investigation included looking at potential manslaughter charges as the victim families search for answers and join us now live in the studio is the Italian journalist and political analyst Marco Columbo Marco thank you very much for joining us in the studio now all the bodies have been recovered and the identifications have been made we now move on to this legal case a manslaughter charge an astonishing next chapter of this and this super yacht disaster could now turn to a very very super sized legal problem yeah there are several issues so the prosecutor yesterday said this is the first time I was allowed to speak to the Press by law but I new legislation uh but I wanted to talk to you earlier for for the sake of information uh so that that was the reason why we waited so long but we can expect news from the prosecutor and put some names into uh into their man's lter so the crime is there now he just has provide the names funny enough the the more likely to be to be accused uh an investigated is James cut cutfield the he the captain the captain the key Captain who might have left Italy because the prosecutor yesterday uh uh went asked said we have no power to keep citizens doesn't matter where they're from here because they're not been uh so he may already have left Italy I was reading today on the Italian papers that they're probably all gone from the resort they were not they were not under detention they were not in jail so they're probably gone and the autopsy could be the other step so on Tuesday we're going to go the autopsies of the uh bodies that been recovered so the skipper James cutfield he was grilled for over two hours in Italy before he left but now of course it's the culpability issue was there a human Blame A manslaughter charge doesn't go against the water spout it's against a human and and the most likely Target is James cutfield was the Keel correctly positioned where the port holes left open was a sufficient time to alert the people who perished so many many questions to be asked of him well the main one is uh the uh boat sank in 50 minutes the alarm uh there was a flare was sent 32 minutes later what happened in that time uh so it was very brief the moment the accident even and second question is the prosecutor put it yesterday why was a captain in the uh inflatable as opposed to on his boat trying to save the people why I didn't do the counting when we were called as uh castal guards we were not told seven people are still in the water we were we were we were told look for survivors so what they were searching was over the water as opposed to going and trying to save the people and yesterday what uh what came out is that the way they found the people that the boat is basically sinking on one side these people were clearly on the on the very edge trying to grasp the last uh uh the last bubbles so can imagine even the suffering of these people knowing what was going on very clearly very rapidly 50 m down seven people in and and it's sort of odd to us uh just on hearing it there will be a reason is that um five or six at least of the of the Dead sadly were in one cabin they were found in one place terribly tragically Hannah the 18-year-old daughter was found in a separate cabin about two doors along um we don't know therefore whether they died in their sleep or were drowned in their sleep um or did have some time to gather together to try and figure out what to do for for um yesterday we we realized uh that the divers had done 136 di diving uh operation in pairs a total of 4,000 minutes so before before the press conference so clearly they had a good picture of what happened uh and their feeling is that they literally try to go to the to the edge where there was the last available um they haven't been able to uh investigate the vessel that's the part why they want to bring it up that's part of the legal legal procedure so they have to empty this 18,000 lers of uh Petrol in it and Marco quickly if we could there's also going to be an insurance issue because the the craft would have been insured the skipper would have been insured and the people who've perished were very very wealthy putting a value on human life is always impossible but we know that this will be a big price as well as the criminal proceeding there could be a huge financial liability case we're talking about two billion uh Euros um the broker I mean the the the boat belonged to the the billionaire but it was actually in the name of a broker company and they immediately said no it wasn't um he wasn't used as a um on Le it was actually in the hands of the owner so immediately there you have a Le between the company that was kind of a shell and the actual owner in fact it was the wife the boat was in the name of the wife is that right who survived no she didn't survive oh no Mike Lynch's wife I was thinking yeah yeah I mean yes it's going to be it's going to be long and protracted you said yesterday didn't you it's going to take at a cost and also at a cost because that was going to be charge uh the the the cost guard made made it very very clear you are forced obliged to bring it up at your cost that's about 15 million to get that craft to the surface and they want somebody to pay that bill of course the tragedy the human tragedy is going to come out as well as you said in the autopsies and the witness statements and everything and it's just going to be um so terrible and I we I I just stress because I know that people are saying you're only talking about it because they're rich it's not that it's just an incredible tragic human story Emma take us uh to the Sunday Times um with the terrible tragic story of the super yach yeah I mean this is just it's ju every part of this story is sort of equal parts bizarre and tragic um this you the a completely unexpected weather phenomenon a you know a tornado coming up in the middle of the ocean um taking down this super yacht I'm afraid that my experience of super Yachts is almost entirely based on watching below deck so I I know very little about the mechanics of it um but they tallest M ever wasn't it it's built they are you know talking about whether there was some human error um you know whether they were following their instrumentation properly because these days even if it's a you know an old-fashioned style sailing yacht rather than one of the ones that runs on an engine they have incredible navigation weather equipment uh which should have helped to avoid this sort of thing but you just think I mean this guy he was found uh you know he'd been um sued I think over something um antitrust in America it was basically he was he yeah he was accused of Fraud and various money problems um and you this was his celebration 12 years I think trying to clear his name in America and then he had as it says 74 days um from that ending and his life tragically ended he'd actually said and I think he'd given an interview um when he was cleared of all charges um he and his partner um and he said now is the start of my new life yeah absolutely this is my second life he said and of course that's tra be short Tom moving forward it seems now this the super yacht Saga is going to become a super sized lawsuit the Italian Coast Guard already saying there's a manslaughter case manslaughter isn't against a tornado or a water SP it's against a human most likely Target looks like being the skipper James cutfield he was grilled for overed he survived and was grilled for over two talks about the positioning of the K were they not were the passengers not alerted in time this could turn into a massive massive legal case absolutely and whilst on the one hand of course these investigations are going to take place there always is going to want to be a thorough understanding of what could have been done that wasn't done that might have avoided such a horrible tragedy at the same time I do think that sometimes there is this rush to just find blame for what is often just a freak accident and a desire to kind of make it make sense but um that's not to say that something might not be turned up by this investigation but it's I I think sometimes it's just that desire to you know well the Italian authorities went to Great Lengths yesterday we're seeing it announced there that they are want to call they are calling it a manslaughter investigation they therefore are of the opinion clearly that it needs to be investigated whether or not somebody was to blame for this which is astonishing because in Britain we would we would have an investigation yes which would be objective uh we'd have inquests into each death and then a coroner or somebody would say I think somebody needs to be charged with something um but here they're doing it straight away I I imagine at least part of the motivation for being so on the front foot with this is because the world is watching it's such a huge story transatlantically as well as in Europe um but as you say that the the kind of sequencing of it is a little bit odd at least from a British perspective it's interesting um how we've been speaking to journalists throughout the entire time in Italy think we're going to be joined by a c journalists in a bit and the police were very very reluctant to give any information out at all to the media so there's this vacuum where the conspiracy theories were filling it and now it seems we're almost over supplying the media right it's manslaughter case where we're going and they're going to for death con war and how do you put a price on a Billionaire's lost life and his family and the other people on there weren't they were all very very wealthy it's it could be a huge compensation case I think they're very mindful don't you think of the cost of Concordia yeah um and the fact that you know lives lives were um risked and people lost their lives because of the actions in the end we know now of the captain I mean I don't think the life of a billionaire is worth more than the life of anyone ordinary go with insurance claim but the I mean the insurance company is probably yes the ones who might be pushing this particularly hard um I mean this whole case is I was saying to Tom in the green room I'm going to give away a tra secret now that we do talk to each other off [Applause] there but uh I the the fact that his business partner died on the same weekend on the same day on the same day it's just it it is fueling yeah and I don't believe in conspiracy theories and even I went hang on I know you can't stop yourself same and so I looked up the the the you know how that man died he was the co-defendant of Mike Lynch the the two of them were charged and the two of them had to fight for their for U basically to clear their names um and they were both both looking forward to a new chapter in New Life and he was out jogging and it clearly was a terrible accident yeah absolutely this is the coincidences happen it's just that that our our brains love to make patterns out of things and I think that's that's that's what's happening