Head of disaster inquiry blasts "inappropriate" behaviour of Estonian prosecutor.
*The sinking of the passenger-car ferry Estonia more than a decade ago is again the focus of controversy. A fresh Estonian report sharply criticises the work of the international Estonia Commission. The new report revives the previously discredited explosion theory.
In one of the worst peacetime disasters in maritime history, the Estonia sank in the Gulf of Finland while en route from Tallinn to Stockholm on the night of September 28th, 1994. Of the 989 people on board, 852 died. Most of the victims were Swedish and Estonian citizens. There were ten Finns among the dead.
The Finnish members of the international commission, Tuomo Karppinen, the head of the Accident Investigation Board, and his predecessor Kari Lehtola have taken issue with actions taken by Estonian prosecutor Margus Kurm when preparing the report. Both Karppinen and Lehtola have lodged a complaint about Kurm’s actions to the Estonian Embassy in Helsinki.
Karppinen says that the behaviour of Kurm, who chaired the Estonian investigation commission, has been inappropriate. "The Estonian prosecutor came to interrogate us, and raised the same issues that have been twirled around for nearly ten years, as if we had been hiding facts", Karppinen says.
Estonia began to re-examine the accident a year ago, when the country’s government set up a commission to ......
....... investigate reports that the ship would have been carrying war materiel. The report was made public this week.
Tuomo Karppinen says that the report is a collection of old claims about a leak and an explosion, and about conflicting statements.
"On the other hand, there is no shortage of contradictory statements; a total of 137 people were rescued from the ship, and the situation was appalling in every way", Karppinen notes.
Karppinen stands firmly behind the findings of the Estonia Commission. In his view, the final conclusions have not been shaken, even though the report has been re-examined many times.
The commission found that the bow of the Estonia was too weak: on the fateful night, strong waves beating against the bow door visor caused it to break. When it fell, the visor tore open the watertight ramp. Water then surged onto the car deck, causing the ship to sink.
In the investigation, the explosion theory was taken seriously, and investigators looked for traces of an explosion.
The German Meyer Shipyard, which built the Estonia, focused on the explosion theory in its own report. A team of divers led by the American Gregg Bemis Jr. and the German filmmaker Jutta Rabe took samples from the ship’s bow to seek confirmation of the explosion theory, but a respected German research institute found no signs of such an event.
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