Indian officer arrested for undersea cable damage

Dubai, Apr 13 (UNI) An Indian Chief Officer of an Iraqi vessel that was allegedly responsible for snapping an undersea communication cable in February leading to widespread internet outage in India and the UAE has been arrested and will face trial.

Another Korean owned ship which also caused cable damages, however was released after paying huge compensation of 60,000 dollar to Flag Telecom of India whose cables were reportedly hit.

Deputy Director of Criminal Investigation Department of Dubai Police Abdul Jaleel Mahdi said UAE Coast Guards seized the two ships after the telecom operator, M. Ambare Company, disclosed that satellite images of ship movements around the area between the UAE and Oman indicated that anchoring in choppy waters created the problem.

The Korean and Iraqi ships were impounded on February 19 when they entered Dubai territorial waters, the Khaleej Times said.

During police interrogation, the official of the Korean ship admitted that the vessel was passing through the area and agreed to pay damages.

Dubai Police will refer the Indian chief officer and a Syrian chief engineer to Dubai Public Prosecution by next week. The captain of the ship, who is an Iraqi, was not on board the vessel when it was impounded.

The Iraqi ship is also expected to pay 350,000 dollars as compensation to the company whose cables were damaged. An Etisalat official told Khaleej Times that the Internet cables were not by Etisalat but by FLAG.

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