LONDON (AP) — A superyacht that sank Monday off the Sicilian coast during a storm left at least six people dead and one passenger missing. Among that list is British tech kingpin Mike Lynch and some of his inner circle, who were gathered to celebrate his victory in a long-running legal trial.
Lynch was acquitted in June in a U.S. fraud case and was apparently aboard the Bayesian with some of the people who stood by him throughout the ordeal. Another member of Lynch's legal team who wasn't aboard, Reid Weingarten, said the outing was intended in part as a celebration of the acquittal.
Here's a look at the people who are dead or missing, as well as details on the recent death of an associate of Lynch who was not on the yacht.
Software entrepreneur Mike Lynch, along with his daughter, Hannah, are among those that police divers are searching for after the yacht was struck by a waterspout off of Porticello, near Palermo.
A spokesperson for Lynch said there were no updates Tuesday.
Lynch had been trying to move past a Silicon Valley debacle that had tarnished his legacy as an icon of British ingenuity.
A Cambridge-educated mathematician, Lynch made his mark with Autonomy, which made a search engine that could pore through emails and other internal business documents to help companies find vital information more quickly. Autonomy’s steady growth in its first decade resulted in Lynch being dubbed Britain’s Bill Gates and earning him one of the U.K’s highest honors, the Office of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire in 2006.
Lynch, 59, sold Autonomy to Hewlett-Packard for $11 billion in 2011. But the deal quickly turned sour after he was accused of cooking the books to make the sale.
The fraud allegations resulting in Lynch being fired by HP’s then-CEO Meg Whitman and a decade-long legal battle. It culminated with him being extradited from the U.K. to face criminal charges of masterminding a multibillion-dollar fraud.
Lynch steadfastly denied any wrongdoing, asserting that he was being made a scapegoat for HP’s own bungling — a position he maintained while testifying before a jury during a 2 1/2 month trial in San Francisco earlier this year. U.S. Justice Department prosecutors called more than 30 witnesses in an attempt to prove their allegations against Lynch.
Lynch was vindicated at trial in June after being cleared of all charges. Lynch pledged to return to the U.K. and explore new ways to innovate.
Although he avoided a possible prison sentence, Lynch still faced a potentially huge bill stemming from a civil cased in London that HP mostly won in 2022. Damages haven’t been determined in that case, but HP is seeking $4 billion. Lynch made more than $800 million from the Autonomy sale.
Lynch later went on to set up technology investment firm Invoke Capital.
One of Lynch’s U.S. lawyers, Christopher Morvillo of the firm Clifford Chance, and his wife Neda were also on the yacht and are among those unaccounted for.
Morvillo is regarded as an elite defense attorney specializing in fraud and corruption cases. He was previously a federal prosecutor in New York who worked on the criminal investigation of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. His father, Robert Morvillo, was also a lawyer who represented high-profile clients, including Martha Stewart.
In a LinkedIn post soon after Lynch's acquittal, Morvillo paid tribute to the team of lawyers who worked on the case and also his wife and two daughters.
“None of this would have been possible without your love and support. I am so glad to be home,” he wrote. The post ended with the words: “And they all lived happily ever after….”
In a legal podcast released last week, Morvillo recounted his involvement with Lynch's case, starting from when his firm was hired in November 2012.
He flew to London to meet Lynch on Thanksgiving weekend that year and assumed he would be gone for a week, Morvillo told the For the Defense podcast. Instead, Morvillo said he “spent a significant portion of the rest of my life bouncing back and forth between London and New York.”
The case has “covered one third of my career,” he said. “It has been a constant presence in my life for the last 12 years.”
Clifford Chance said it was “in shock and deeply saddened by this tragic incident” and that its thoughts are with Morvillo and his wife. “Our utmost priority is providing support to the family,” the firm said.
The chairman of Morgan Stanley's London-based investment banking subsidiary, Jonathan Bloomer, and his wife, Judy, were also among the yacht's missing.
Bloomer is non-executive chairman of both Morgan Stanley International, which covers markets outside the U.S., and the Hiscox Group, an insurer that does business on the Lloyd’s of London insurance marketplace.
Lynch appointed Bloomer to Autonomy’s board of directors in 2010, where he served as chairman of the audit committee at the time of the HP deal. Bloomer testified for the defense at Lynch’s trial.
Both Morgan Stanley and Hiscox said they were “deeply shocked and saddened" by the tragedy.
“Our thoughts are with all those affected, in particular the Bloomer family, as we all wait for further news from this terrible situation," the bank said.
Aki Hussain, the group chief executive of Hiscox, said "our thoughts are with all those affected, in particular our chair, Jonathan Bloomer, and his wife Judy, who are among the missing, and with their family as they await further news from this terrible situation.”
In a strange coincidence, another former Autonomy executive who was acquitted alongside Lynch of the fraud charges died days before the sinking of the Bayesian.
Stephen Chamberlain “was fatally struck by a car on Saturday while out running,” his lawyer Gary Lincenberg said in a statement.
Chamberlain, formerly a vice-president of finance at the company, was accused of artificially inflating Autonomy’s revenues and making false and misleading statements to auditors, analysts and regulators.
He stood trial with Lynch, and was also found not guilty.
“He was a courageous man with unparalleled integrity. We deeply miss him," Lincenberg said. “Steve fought successfully to clear his good name at trial earlier this year, and his good name now lives on through his wonderful family.”
Chamberlain “was a much-loved husband, father, son, brother and friend," his family said in statement released through Cambridgeshire Police. “He was an amazing individual whose only goal in life was to help others in any way possible."
Police said the driver, a 49-year-old woman, remained at the scene in the village of Stretham, England, and was assisting with the investigation.
The chef with Antiguan roots was the first confirmed death from the accident. Cooking for Lynch was supposed to be one of his last jobs before retiring, his cousin, David Isaac, told The Associated Press.
Thomas was born in Canada but he would visit his parents’ homeland of Antigua as a child, moving permanently to the tiny eastern Caribbean island in his early 20s.
“He was a free spirit,” Isaac recalled. “Nothing rattled him. I’ve never seen him upset.”
Upon moving to Antigua, Thomas, best known as “Rick,” started working as a bartender in Jolly Harbor so he could be close to the sea, his second love after cooking, Isaac said.
Thomas also picked up jobs on small boats and eventually went to culinary school and started working on bigger ships.
Isaac recalled how Thomas would be gone for several months at a time and then unexpectedly show up in Antigua between jobs.
“This particular incident was hard,” Isaac said. “He was just ready to tie up the end of his journey in his career."
Isaac recalled Thomas’ “big, infectious” laugh and said he found some solace in that “Rick did exactly what he was meant to do and what he loved doing.”
AP writers Eric Tucker in Washington and Anika Kentish in St. John's, Antigua, contributed to this report.
This version has corrected a date to 2001 sted 2002.
Emergency services at the scene of the search for a missing boat, in Porticello Santa Flavia, Italy, Monday, Aug. 19, 2024. British tech giant Mike Lynch, his lawyer and four other people are among those missing after their luxury superyacht sank during a freak storm off Sicily, Italy’s civil protection and authorities said. Lynch’s wife and 14 other people survived. (Alberto Lo Bianco /LaPresse via AP)
FILE - British tech magnate Mike Lynch walks into federal court in San Francisco, March 26, 2024, (AP Photo/Michael Liedtke, File)
Tech tycoon, defense attorney, and Morgan Stanley banker among those missing in freak yacht sinking
Tech tycoon, defense attorney, and Morgan Stanley banker among those missing in freak yacht sinking
The U.S. secretary of state said Thursday the United States will continue to press Israel to do more to spare humanitarian sites in the Gaza Strip, a day after an Israeli airstrike on a U.N. school complex sheltering displaced Palestinians killed 14 people there, including six U.N. staffers.
Meanwhile, Turkey announced its own probe into the death of a Turkish-American activist who was shot and killed by Israeli forces last week while protesting settlements in the occupied West Bank. And a Syrian pro-government media outlet and an opposition war monitor said an Israeli strike hit a car in southern Syria on Thursday, killing two people.
The deaths at the U.N. school on Wednesday came amid a spate of Israeli airstrikes across Gaza that killed at least 34 Palestinians, according to local officials. Among those killed were 19 women and children, they said.
The Health Ministry says more than 41,000 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza since the Israel-Hamas war began. It does not differentiate between fighters and civilians in its count. The war has caused vast destruction and displaced about 90% of Gaza’s population of 2.3 million, often multiple times.
Hamas-led militants killed some 1,200 people, mostly civilians, in their Oct. 7 attack that sparked the war. They abducted another 250 and are still holding around 100. Around a third of them are believed to be dead.
Here's the latest:
DEIR AL-BALAH, Gaza Strip — The World Health Organization says medical teams in Gaza are wrapping up the final day of an emergency polio vaccination campaign following the discovery of the territory’s first-known case of the illness in more than 25 years.
Dr. Rik Peeperkorn, the U.N. health agency’s representative, told reporters in a news conference from Gaza that the health workers had reached more than an estimated 552,000 children under the age of 5. They used a new oral polio vaccine targeting the specific type of polio seen in Gaza, which is a mutated strain that originated in an older oral vaccine.
Peeperkorn said WHO and its partners have yet to do a final analysis of how many children were actually covered, but added that it was more than expected. On Wednesday, Palestinian health officials said more than half a million Gaza children have been vaccinated.
“We are quite confident that we reached an enormous amount of children in this short time,” Peeperkorn said, referring to the four-day vaccination campaign. He said authorities were aiming to cover more than 90% of children in this immunization round and in the second one, to be held next month.
WARSAW — U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken says the United States will continue to urge Israel to do more to spare humanitarian sites in the Gaza Strip after an Israeli airstrike on a U.N. school complex sheltering displaced Palestinians killed six U.N. staffers.
When asked on Thursday at a news conference in the Polish capital about Israel’s bombing of the school complex in central Gaza the day before, Blinken told reporters that “we need to see humanitarian sites protected.”
“That’s something we continue to raise with Israel,” he said.
Wednesday's strike on the U.N.-supported al-Jaouni Preparatory Boys School in Nuseirat refugee camp, in central Gaza, killed at least 14 people, including two children and a woman, hospital officials said. Among those killed were six staffers from the U.N. Palestinian refugee agency, known as UNRWA, the main U.N. relief agency in Gaza.
UNRWA described the strike as the deadliest single incident for its staff members. Among those killed at the school, it said, were the manager of the shelter and others working to help the thousands of displaced people taking refuge there, including teachers.
The head of UNRWA, Philippe Lazzarini, said at least 220 UNRWA staffers have been killed in Gaza since Israel’s military offensive began in response to Hamas’ deadly Oct. 7 attack on Israel.
The Israeli military said it was targeting Hamas militants planning attacks from inside the school.
Blinken blamed Hamas for continuing to hide its fighters among civilians and said the bombing “underscores the urgency" of reaching a cease-fire in the embattled territory.
CAIRO — The World Health Organization says the United Arab Emirates has evacuated nearly 100 critically wounded and sick Palestinians from Gaza, including cancer patients, for medical treatment in the Gulf Arab state.
The U.N. health agency said on Thursday that a total of 252 Palestinians from Gaza, including 97 patients and their relatives, flew the previous day to Abu Dhabi in the UAE from the Ramon airport in Israel.
It was the biggest exit of Palestinian medical patients in Gaza through Israel since the war began.
WHO said that the patients, among them 45 children and 52 adults, were suffering from severe injuries or critical conditions such as brain tumors and amputations. It was the second such evacuation flight that the UAE has coordinated to provide advanced medical care to Palestinians.
With few exceptions, Israel has barred Gaza’s Palestinians from entering Israel throughout the war.
Gaza has been completely sealed off since May, when Israeli forces captured the Gaza side of the border with Egypt, including the Rafah crossing between Egypt and the coastal strip, leading to its closure.
JERUSALEM — The Israeli body that accredits journalists said on Thursday that it will revoke the press cards of Al-Jazeera reporters working in the country.
The move comes after Israel shut down the Qatar-based broadcaster’s local operations in May. Authorities already prevent Al-Jazeera broadcasts and block its websites.
Israel accuses Al-Jazeera of incitement and threatening national security over its coverage of the war in Gaza.
Nitzan Chen, the director of the Government Press Office, said “the use of GPO cards in the course of the journalists’ work could in itself jeopardize state security at this time of military emergency.”
Al-Jazeera denies the allegations and has accused Israel of trying to silence its coverage.
With several correspondents reporting from inside Gaza, the channel has provided round-the-clock coverage of the war since the Oct. 7 Hamas attack that ignited it. Its coverage has focused on civilian casualties in Gaza, and it often airs Hamas videos and statements in their entirety.
Israeli strikes have killed four Al-Jazeera reporters since the start of the war. The government office said the revocation of the press cards would be subject to a hearing. It will apply to Al-Jazeera journalists and broadcasters but not producers or photographers. Turkey launches its own probe into the killing of Turkish-American activist in the West Bank
ANKARA, Turkey — Turkey’s justice minister says his country is investigating the death of a Turkish-American activist shot and killed by Israeli forces last week while protesting settlements in the occupied West Bank.
The 26-year-old activist from Seattle was taking part in a demonstration against settlements in the Palestinian territory when she was fatally shot last Friday. Israel is investigating the killing of Aysenur Ezgi Eygi and its military later said she was likely shot “indirectly and unintentionally” by soldiers.
Turkish Justice Minister Yilmaz Tunc said on Thursday that the Ankara chief prosecutor’s office was leading the Turkish probe. He also called on U.N. agencies, including the Special Rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions, to investigate.
Tunc said Turkey would present its findings to a U.N. court overseeing a genocide case against Israel filed by South Africa over the war in Gaza.
“We will take every judicial step for our martyred daughter, Aysenur,” Tunc said.
Meanwhile, the Turkish Foreign Ministry said Eygi’s body was likely to be brought to Turkey on Friday. Her burial is scheduled to take place in the Aegean coastal town of Didim, in western Turkey, in line with her family’s wishes.
BEIRUT — A Syrian pro-government radio and a war-monitoring group say an Israeli strike hit a car in southern Syria, killing two people. The Sham FM didn’t give further details on the Thursday morning strike on the village of Khan Arnabeh, near Syria’s Israeli-occupied Golan Heights.
The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, an opposition war monitor, also reported that two people were killed in the airstrike, without giving further details.
There was no immediate comment from Israel, which has carried out such airstrikes over the past months on the edge of the Golan Heights, captured by Israel during the 1967 Mideast war and annexed in 1981. Israel says it is targeting Iran-linked militants.
Israel has vowed to stop Iranian entrenchment in Syria, where thousands of Iran-backed fighters are deployed. Syria is a key route for Iran to send weapons to Lebanon’s Hezbollah group.
People inspect the destruction following an Israeli forces raid in Tulkarem, West Bank, on Wednesday, Sept. 11, 2024. (AP Photo/Majdi Mohammed)
An Israeli soldier aims her rifle during an army raid in Tubas, West Bank, on Wednesday, Sept. 11, 2024. (AP Photo/Majdi Mohammed)
An Israeli tank overlooks the Gaza Strip, as seen from southern Israel, Wednesday, Sept. 11, 2024. (AP Photo/Tsafrir Abayov)
Palestinian flags are seen during a vigil on Alki Beach for Aysenur Ezgi Eygi, a 26-year-old activist from Seattle, who was killed recently in the West Bank, Wednesday, Sept. 11, 2024, in Seattle. (AP Photo/John Froschauer)
Ezgi is spelled in candles on the sand during a vigil on Alki Beach for Aysenur Ezgi Eygi, a 26-year-old activist from Seattle, who was killed recently in the West Bank, Wednesday, Sept. 11, 2024, in Seattle. (AP Photo/John Froschauer)
