Bayesian superyacht sinking: Banking boss and wife ‘suffocated in air bubble as oxygen ran out’
Four people who died when a superyacht sank off the coast of Sicily suffocated in an air bubble as oxygen ran out, according to Italian media.
Jonathan Bloomer, his wife Judy Bloomer, Chris Morvillo and his wife Neda Morvillo were four of the seven people who died when the Bayesian superyacht sank last month.
They were on the trip with British tech entrepreneur Mike Lynch to celebrate his acquittal of fraud charges in June in the US, when a violent storm hit.
Who was on superyacht that sank off Sicily?
Divers searching the area where the yacht sank Pic: Reuters
Mr Lynch, his 18-year-old daughter Hannah Lynch, and the yacht’s chef, Recaldo Thomas, died as well.
As the boat went down, Mr and Mrs Bloomer were said to have suffocated as oxygen ran out, and not drowned, La Repubblica reported.
Their post-mortems, along with those of Mr Morvillo and his wife, were said to have found no water in their lungs, suggesting they died as their cabins filled with carbon dioxide and ran out of oxygen.
Divers who recovered the bodies reportedly found them on the left side of cabins – which investigators believe showed them seeking the last pockets of air as the vessel tilted to the right after sinking.
There were no signs of injuries to the four victims examined so far, La Repubblica added.
Mr Lynch’s wife, Angela Bacares, survived the sinking, along with 14 other people.
Mike Lynch
Pic: Reuters
Hannah Lynch
The remaining post-mortems, on Mr Lynch, his daughter, and Mr Thomas, will be carried out on Friday, reports added, and the superyacht is expected to be raised from the seabed as part of the investigation.
Italian prosecutors have placed the boat’s captain, New Zealander James Cutfield, and two Britons, engineer Tim Parker Eaton and crew member Matthew Griffiths, under investigation for suspected multiple manslaughter and culpable shipwreck.
Mr Parker Eaton reportedly denied allegations that external doors were left open on the night of the storm, allowing water to flood the engine room.
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Chef Recaldo Thomas
Chris Morvillo Pic: Clifford Chance handout
The three men have been allowed to leave Sicily as the investigation continues to try to understand what happened in the 16 minutes between the yacht being hit by the storm at 3.50am and sinking in 60 seconds at 4.06am.
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Mr Cutfield has been quoted by Italian media as telling investigators: “Griffiths came to wake me, saying there were 20 knots of wind.
“I checked the instruments and it was effectively true. I went out immediately and asked that everyone was advised of this because I didn’t like the situation.”
He reportedly said the yacht then tilted to 45 degrees and held there for a bit, before suddenly lurching the other way and throwing them into the sea.
Mr Griffiths has reportedly said: “We were then able to climb back on and we tried to save those we could. We were walking on the walls. We rescued those we could, also Cutfield rescued the little girl and her mother.”
Donald Trump has agreed to send “top of the line weapons” to NATO to support Ukraine – and threatened Russia with “severe” tariffs if it doesn’t agree to end the war.
Speaking with NATO secretary general Mark Rutte during a meeting at the White House, the US president said: “We’ve made a deal today where we are going to be sending them weapons, and they’re going to be paying for them.
“This is billions of dollars worth of military equipment which is going to be purchased from the United States,” he added, “going to NATO, and that’s going to be quickly distributed to the battlefield.”
Weapons being sent include surface-to-air Patriot missile systems and batteries, which Ukraine has asked for to defend itself from Russian air strikes.
Pic: Reuters
Mr Trump also said he was “very unhappy” with Russia, and threatened “severe tariffs” of “about 100%” if there isn’t a deal to end the war in Ukraine within 50 days.
The White House added that the US would put “secondary sanctions” on countries that buy oil from Russia if an agreement was not reached.
It comes after weeks of frustration from Mr Trump against Vladimir Putin’s refusal to agree to an end to the conflict, with the Russian leader telling the US president he would “not back down” from Moscow’s goals in Ukraine at the start of the month.
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Trump says Putin ‘talks nice and then bombs everybody’
During the briefing on Monday, Mr Trump said he had held calls with Mr Putin where he would think “that was a nice phone call,” but then “missiles are launched into Kyiv or some other city, and that happens three or four times”.
“I don’t want to say he’s an assassin, but he’s a tough guy,” he added.
Earlier this year, Mr Trump told Ukrainian leader Volodymyr Zelenskyy “you’re gambling with World War Three” in a fiery White House meeting, and suggested Ukraine started the war against Russia as he sought to negotiate an end to the conflict.
After Mr Trump’s briefing, Russian senator Konstantin Kosachev said on Telegram: “If this is all that Trump had in mind to say about Ukraine today, then all the steam has gone out.”
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Meanwhile, Mr Zelenskyy met with US special envoy Keith Kellogg in Kyiv, where they “discussed the path to peace” by “strengthening Ukraine’s air defence, joint production, and procurement of defence weapons in collaboration with Europe”.
He thanked both the envoy for the visit and Mr Trump “for the important signals of support and the positive decisions for both our countries”.
At least 30 people have been killed in the Syrian city of Sweida in clashes between local military groups and tribes, according to Syria’s interior ministry.
Officials say initial figures suggest around 100 people have also been injured in the city, where the Druze faith is one of the major religious groups.
The interior ministry said its forces will directly intervene to resolve the conflict, which the Reuters news agency said involved fighting between Druze gunmen and Bedouin Sunni tribes.
It marks the latest episode of sectarian violence in Syria, where fears among minority groups have increased since Islamist-led rebels toppled President Bashar al Assad in December, installing their own government and security forces.
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In March, Sky’s Stuart Ramsay described escalating violence within Syria
The violence reportedly erupted after a wave of kidnappings, including the abduction of a Druze merchant on Friday on the highway linking Damascus to Sweida.
Last April, Sunni militia clashed with armed Druze residents of Jaramana, southeast of Damascus, and fighting later spread to another district near the capital.
But this is the first time the fighting has been reported inside the city of Sweida itself, the provincial capital of the mostly Druze province.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR) reports the fighting was centred in the Maqwas neighbourhood east of Sweida and villages on the western and northern outskirts of the city.
It adds that Syria’s Ministry of Defence has deployed military convoys to the area.
Western nations, including the US and UK, have been increasingly moving towards normalising relations with Syria.
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UK aims to build relationship with Syria
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Concerns among minority groups have intensified following the killing of hundreds of Alawites in March, in apparent retaliation for an earlier attack carried out by Assad loyalists.
That was the deadliest sectarian flare-up in years in Syria, where a 14-year civil war ended with Assad fleeing to Russia after his government was overthrown by rebel forces.
The city of Sweida is in southern Syria, about 24 miles (38km) north of the border with Jordan.
The man convicted of the murder of British student Meredith Kercher has been charged with sexual assault against an ex-girlfriend.
Rudy Guede, 38, was the only person who was definitively convicted of the murder of 21-year-old Ms Kercher in Perugia, Italy, back in 2007.
He will be standing trial again in November after an ex-girlfriend filed a police report in the summer of 2023 accusing Guede of mistreatment, personal injury and sexual violence.
Guede, from the Ivory Coast, was released from prison for the murder of Leeds University student Ms Kercher in 2021, after having served about 13 years of a 16-year sentence.
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Since last year – when this investigation was still ongoing – Guede has been under a “special surveillance” regime, Sky News understands, meaning he was banned from having any contact with the woman behind the sexual assault allegations, including via social media, and had to inform police any time he left his city of residence, Viterbo, as ruled by a Rome court.
Guede has been serving a restraining order and fitted with an electronic ankle tag.
The Kercher murder case, in the university city of Perugia, was the subject of international attention.
Ms Kercher, a 21-year-old British exchange student, was found murdered in the flat she shared with her American roommate, Amanda Knox.
The Briton’s throat had been cut and she had been stabbed 47 times.
(L-R) Raffaele Sollecito, Meredith Kercher and Amanda Knox. File pic: AP
Ms Knox and her then-boyfriend, Raffaele Sollecito, were placed under suspicion.
Both were initially convicted of murder, but Italy’s highest court overturned their convictions, acquitting them in 2015.
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