MILAN (Reuters) – Italian prosecutors have opened a terrorism investigation over an explosion last weekend that damaged an oil tanker anchored off the coast of northern Italy, the chief prosecutor of the city of Genoa said on Thursday.
Two explosions caused a 70 x 120 centimetre (28 x 47 inch) breach below the waterline on the hull of the Greek-operated crude oil tanker Seajewel, when it was anchored on Saturday off the port of Savona-Vado on Italy’s north-western coast.
Three oil tankers have been damaged by blasts in the last month in separate incidents around the Mediterranean, with the causes unknown.
All three vessels had recently called at Russian ports, according to ship tracking data and sources.
“We took over the black box, the ship was not seized,” Genoa chief prosecutor Nicola Piacente told Reuters in reference to Saturday’s explosion in Italy.
The anti-terrorism section of Genoa’s Public Prosecutor’s Office is investigating suspected “shipwreck aggravated by terrorist intent,” he said.
(Reporting by Emilio Parodi, editing by Gavin Jones)
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