Express Samina Crewmembers Jailed Pending Trial
A Greek public prosecutor on Tuesday ordered the captain and second officer of the sunken ferry Express Samina to be jailed pending trial on charges of manslaughter, an investigating magistrate said. The ferry hit a well-charted islet and sank last Tuesday, killing at least 79 people, just before reaching the Aegean island of Paros. It was reported that prosecutor Dimitris Dadinopoulos also formally charged the two with exposing passengers to danger resulting in death, causing a shipwreck and a series of lesser charges in what was Greece deadliest sea tragedy in decades. Captain Vassilis Yannakis has reportedly said he was unwell and taking a nap shortly before the crash.
Greek Ferry Exec Plunges To His Death
A senior executive at the shipping company which owned a Greek ferry that sank in September killing 80 people, plunged to his death from the sixth floor of his office building on Wednesday, Reuters reported. Police said Pantelis Sfinias, vice president of the board of directors of Minoan Flying Dolphins, a subsidiary of Minoan Lines, was seen by passers-by and employees stepping off the building in the port of Piraeus. The Express Samina sank off the island of Paros with 500 people aboard in Greece's worst maritime tragedy in decades. Police said they believed Sfinias's death was a suicide. "When the ambulance arrived to take him to hospital he was already dead," a police official said. News of Sfinias's death shocked the company and the Athens Stock Exchange.
