email editor
Five fishermen have been held in custody over the death of a crew mate onboard the fishing boat Inger Katrine in the North Sea on Monday. Photo: TVMIDVEST
The five men who appeared in Court in Holstebro yesterday in relation to the death of a crew mate onboard a fishing boat in the North Sea have been remanded in custody.
The incident took place onboard the 17-metre Danish-registered ‘Inger Katrine’ L 1 on Monday 30 January but the fishermen were only arrested and detained on Wednesday afternoon, 01 February, after the boat returned to Thyboron, where it remains.
On the morning of the event, at around 05.12, the Central and West Jutland Police received a report that a crew member on a fishing boat located in the North Sea was unresponsive. The lifeless man was flown ashore by helicopter on Monday morning and pronounced dead on arrival at the hospital.
The Central and West Jutland Police yesterday told The Fishing Daily:
“Because of the circumstances of the death, the police considered it as suspicious.
“Due to bad weather, it was not possible for the ship to reach the harbour in Thyborøn until Wednesday evening. Neither was it possible for the police to enter the ship.
“When the ship entered the harbour of Thyborøn the crew members were interrogated. The five crew members are now in preliminary examination, charged with homicide at the city court of Holstebro.”
After their arrest on Wednesday, the five men appeared before the Court in Holstebro at a 1.00pm sitting, where the five pleaded not guilty to the charges put to them. The hearing lasted more than seven hours according to Danish news channel TV MIDVEST , and at 8.30pm local time on Thursday night, the five men were remanded into custody for the killing of a sixth fisherman onboard the boat.
They men will remain in custody for the next four weeks, but they have appealed the ruling.
The judge ruled that the hearing was to be held behind closed doors but while the press was present, the prosecutor referred to the autopsy report on the deceased fisherman which said that signs of strangulation and suffocation were found, along with lesions on the body and face, broken vertebrae, along with other injuries. Therefore the police believe the cause of death was violence and suffocation.
“The judge has chosen to follow the prosecution’s recommendation to remand them all for four weeks. The court session has been held behind closed doors, and therefore I cannot say more,” says prosecutor at the Central and West Jutland Police Pia Koudahl.
All day yesterday, Thursday, police investigators scoured the ‘Inger Katrine’ for technical clues.
It is believed that the deceased was a man in his 40s who was from the southern part of Ringkøbing-Skjern municipality, and he was a new crew member onboard the ‘Inger Katrine’.
