The second officer aboard the Scot Carrier who was the helmsman when the vessel collided with the Danish barge Karin Høj in December has been extradited to Denmark to stand trial.
The officer is facing charges of negligent manslaughter as well as gross negligence that caused the death of two Danish seamen who were operating the barge.
The Scot Carrier was sailing in the Swedish town of Ystad when it collided with the smaller Danish vessel. The Danish vessel capsized and divers later discovered the body of one of the crew members trapped inside the vessel while the second person remains missing.
Sweden immediately said they suspected drunkenness as a contributing factor to the collision. For this reason, they tested the crew of the Scot Carrier and detained both the chief officer and second officer reporting that both had exceeded the legal limits for blood alcohol.
In fact, Danish media report that the helmsman had a blood alcohol level of not less than 0.457 although he denies that he was drunk.
While the chief officer was released, the second officer remained in custody facing charges for aggravated drunken driving, aggravated negligence in maritime traffic, and aggravated causing another person’s death.
At the same time, a hearing in absentia took place in Denmark, finding that there were enough grounds to bring the officer up on charges. After that, Danish police and prosecutors demanded that the officer be extradited to Denmark.
What is more, lawyers for the second officer had been fighting his extradition claiming that it was breaching the European Convention, the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea, and other international law. T
he lower Swedish courts decided not to proceed with the case, thus opening the way for the extradition and last week Sweden’s Supreme Court refused to hear an appeal clearing the way for the British citizen to be transferred to custody in Denmark.
After a hearing in Copenhagen on February 7, the seafarer was remanded into custody awaiting trial in Denmark.
