The families of the victims cry lies: the commander of a British Royal Navy submarine suspected of having caused the deadly sinking of the Breton trawler Bugaled-Breizh rejected, Tuesday, October 12, any responsibility in this drama which remains unexplained.
With the eagerly awaited testimony of the former commander of the submarine Turbulent before the High Court in London, Andrew Coles, the families of the five sailors killed in the shipwreck hoped to get closer to the truth, and finally find out what happened on January 15, 2004, when their loved ones were swept to the bottom.
From the start, they believe that the trawler fishing off Cornwall (south-west England) was sunk by a submarine which got caught in its nets. But questioned for about an hour, Andrew Coles, who is no longer in the Royal Navy, denied any involvement of his nuclear attack submarine.
“We were at the quay”
“We weren’t involved at all. We were at the quay ” in Devonport (South West England) ” the 15th “ January 2004, he said. According to him, the Turbulent was scheduled to take part in North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) exercises planned in the area from January 16, but was unable to do so due to damage. The submarine, which had been parked for maintenance since the previous November, did not resume navigation until January 19, 2004.
At the end of the hearing, this testimony was seriously questioned by the families of the victims. “It does not hold water. There are still plenty of things that haven’t been clarified, regretted Thierry Lemétayer, the son of a victim, in front of the press. This is where we see that justice is not moving forward. “
“There was no moment of truth”, denounced his lawyer, Dominique Tricaud. “It is not today that he has chosen to make peace with his conscience, he added of Mr. Coles, the fact that the “Bugaled-Breizh” was sunk by a submarine is a certainty for all serious people. “
The lawyer recalled that it was Andrew Coles who was in command of another submarine, Astute, when it ran aground in Scotland in 2010, shortly after the entry into service of the nuclear submersible which was the pride of the Navy. Andrew Coles also mentioned a meeting with Thierry Lemétayer several years ago during the screening of a documentary on the case in a town in Cornwall.
“I did my best with my very bad French to assure him that I had nothing to do with it”, he remembered. “I was able to allude to the fact that if a submarine had hooked it, that could have been a cause, but not that it was”, he added. At the end of the hearing, the former commander shook hands with Mr. Lemétayer, saying to himself ” sorry “ and hoping he would find some “Responses”.
“We have two marines who are lying”
Earlier Tuesday, two other senior Royal Navy officers assured that the Turbulent was docked on the day of the sinking. Supporting official communications, one of them, Commander Daniel Simmonds, a Navy Underwater Operations Officer, reiterated that only three submarines were at sea when the Bugaled-Breizh sank, and none in the immediate vicinity. He also judged “Unthinkable” that an Allied military submarine may have been in the area assigned to NATO exercises without having signaled its presence.
When the track of a US Navy submarine was mentioned in 2016, the United States had refuted. Just as “Unthinkable”, according to the officer, would be falsifying a submarine’s logbook or documents relating to its movements: this would constitute a “Serious breach” likely to “Erode trust” between allied countries. British Navy exercises were also scheduled on the day of the tragedy – without submarines, according to Daniel Simmonds.
In France, a long legal procedure, closed in 2016, could not decide between the hypothesis of a submarine and that of a fishing accident. Questioned Monday, the Dutch navy had ruled out any involvement of the submarine Dolfijn, ensuring that he was sailing on the surface when the accident occurred. “We have two navies that lie, we have two governments that lie”, lamented Dominique Tricaud.