Pilotsen: Wait with a new trial until the accident commission has investigated the Tjörn accident

It was three weeks ago that the Gothenburg district court convicted the pilot and the captain of the 90-meter-long cargo ship of causing the death of another, causing bodily harm and negligence in maritime traffic.

Prosecutor James von Reis had asked for imprisonment, but the district court chose to give the pilot a daily fine and a suspended sentence. For the captain, the penalty was only a suspended sentence, as he has already been detained for just over a month.

Both have now, as expected, appealed the verdict to the Court of Appeal for Western Sweden, and just as in the district court, their lawyers believe that they should be fully acquitted.

The captain's lawyer Taavi Tuula writes that the captain believes that the district court made an "incorrect evaluation of the evidence and an incorrect assessment of the circumstances. Tuula also notes that good forethought is required for the captain to be present in the courtroom in Gothenburg.

Lawyer Thomas Håkansson defends the pilot. Not least in the appeal, he points to the documents that show that the so-called line of sight from the ship's dock was so impaired by the way the ship was loaded, that the so-called blind sector was impermissibly large.

Pilotsen's lawyer also wants the Court of Appeal to wait with the hearing until the State Accident Commission's investigation into the accident, where the mother and daughter of a family drowned, is complete.