Denmark Says Fatal Fall of Polish Mother, Son from Ferry Was Not an Accident

The deaths of a Polish woman and her 7-year-old son last week following their plunge from a Baltic Sea ferry travelling from Sweden to Poland was not an accident, a preliminary investigation by Danish authorities has found.

The case was being investigated as a possible murder, Swedish prosecutors said on Friday.

The case had been handed over to the police, the public prosecutor and the Danish Maritime Authority for further investigation. Danish authorities are investigating the case because the ferry Stena Spirit was sailing under the Danish flag.

"Our investigation showed quite clearly that it was not an accident," Oessur Jarleivson Hilduberg, head of the Danish Maritime Accident Investigation Board, told Reuters on Monday.

The preliminary investigation had collected data from video footage, pictures and witnesses, Hilduberg said.

The ferry was in the Baltic midway through its journey to Gdynia in Poland from Karlskrona in Sweden when the child had fallen off the vessel. The mother jumped overboard in an attempted rescue.

The two were later winched to a helicopter and taken to a Swedish hospital, but later died.

(Reuters - Reporting by Jacob Gronholt-Pedersen; Editing by Devika Syamnath)