Finnish court throws out Eagle S cable damage case for lack of jurisdiction

Helsinki: A Finnish court on Friday dismissed charges against the captain and two officers of the oil tanker Eagle S, ruling it lacked jurisdiction in a case over alleged damage to undersea cables in the Gulf of Finland last year.

The Helsinki District Court said Finnish criminal law could not be applied because the alleged acts occurred in international waters, within Finland's exclusive economic zone but outside its territorial waters. Jurisdiction, it added, rests with the courts of the vessel's flag state or the defendants' home countries.

The Cook Islands-flagged tanker was suspected of dragging its anchor for about 90 km on Christmas Day 2024, severing five cables, including the EstLink 2 power link between Finland and Estonia -- a key connector in the Baltic and Nordic energy markets -- as well as four telecommunications cables. The ship was later boarded by the Finnish Border Guard and escorted to port.

The trial opened in August, with prosecutors seeking prison terms of at least 2.5 years for Captain Davit Vadatchkoria and officers Robert Egizaryan and Santosh Kumar Chaurasia, accusing them of aggravated criminal mischief and aggravated interference with communications.

The defence and the shipowner argued from the outset that the case was outside Finnish jurisdiction.

The court noted the cable damage caused significant financial losses, with compensation claims running into tens of millions of euros, but did not pose the kind of direct threat to Finland's energy supply required to meet the threshold for criminal mischief.

The state was ordered to reimburse about 195,000 euros (229,000 U.S. dollars) in legal costs to the defendants, who have since left Finland after their nine-month travel bans were lifted in September, according to national broadcaster Yle.

The ruling is not yet legally binding and may be appealed, the court said. (1 euro = 1.17 U.S. dollar)