Case of Bugaled Breizh: "The English have not said everything"

Three weeks of hearings in London have revived the Bugaled Breizh affair.

On January 15, 2004, this Breton trawler was pulled down by the bottom in 37 seconds.

Two submarine military exercises were taking place, and the involvement of a submarine is strongly suspected by the bereaved families of the five sailors.

For the first time, the captain of the English submarine

was heard.

The British justice nevertheless concluded with a "fishing accident".

Read also Shipwreck of the Bugaled Breizh in 2004: was the Breton trawler sunk by a submarine?

LE FIGARO.

- British justice therefore concluded that it was a

"

".

Dominique TRICAUD. -

No surprise. We were surprised that the judge did not call a jury, as it was very likely that he would have been convinced of the intervention of a submarine. Not appealing to a jury therefore worried us about the direction the

. But above all, the only expert appointed by the

had received a very limited mission: to study the report of the BEA (office of investigations into marine incidents) which is not an independent body. The military team that wrote the report mentions that it is not an expert report.

These soldiers used expertises already carried out to arrive at other conclusions.

Based solely on a report which concluded the accidental cause, we believed that this conclusion was inevitable.

In addition, we had asked that Admiral Salles, former commander of the French fleet of nuclear attack submarines in the Atlantic, author of numerous reports concluding that the "

" of the presence of a sub. -marine be heard.

We were denied that.

How do families receive this verdict?

Since the date of the shipwreck, families have felt that a reason of state is opposed to the truth.

It is the only way for her to build mourning.

This feeling goes back to two days after the sinking, since the ship Andromeda had taken the families to the scene and lowered a "

" with a camera which showed only one side of the wreck, while nothing prevented show the other side.

The first conclusion was therefore the hypothesis of a rogue cargo ship which struck the Bugaled Breizh.

Investigators had been sent to the four corners of the world in Djibouti, Port Said to scratch the nose of all the cargo ships passed in the area.

Read alsoBugaled Breizh: the hypotheses of the sinking

The Government had announced, with a lot of communication, that no rogue cargo ship could reproduce this kind of thing.

But once the wreckage was raised, we understood that what is presented as a shock was actually an implosion of the bilge, which had nothing to do with an external impact.

It is obvious that these elements were known to the French Navy.

One need only see the underwater camera recordings to see all the efforts not to show the left side of the wreckage.

Did you expect a different conclusion from the UK authorities?

Initially yes, because the

of Truro (seized in 2019 Editor's note), competent because the bodies were found in the territorial waters of Cornwall, was extremely courageous. At the first hearing, the

showed up when it did not say it was in any way concerned. The

had sharply replied that she might well be concerned. What follows is difficult to analyze, the

of Truro was overwhelmed, to put it mildly, by the implications of the case which was ultimately relocated to London. From then on, things got a bit of a spin.

SEE ALSO -

Sinking of the Bugaled Breizh: the families cry lies after the hearing of the commander of the submarine Turbulent

To use Jean-Yves Le Drian's expression, have the English said everything?

In my opinion, the English have not said everything.

We were asking a number of questions.

First technical on the cause of the sinking.

All the experts who intervened, apart from the BEA which is not an expert, concluded that the Bugaled Breizh's net was extremely likely to be caught by a submarine.

By closing his eyes to all expert opinions, and limiting himself to that of the BEA, the

refrained from reaching the truth.

From the start, we have had questions about the position of

and

(two submarines suspected of being on the scene on the day of the sinking Editor's note).

When the Admiral of the British Fleet came to tell the audience that it is impossible for a submarine to have been near the Bugaled Breizh, Admiral Salles replied that no one could tell, with 70 meters background outside territorial waters, whether or not there was a submarine.

Do you think we will ever know the truth?

I think so.

Seventeen years after the tragedy, the families do not demobilize and the tongues are loosened.

In recent years, journalists have collected many confidences such as that of a sailor from the French submarine the Rubis, who was on duty in the area - cited by Ouest-France - who had "

'.

I have great hope that these confidences will become public.

In the crews of the submarines, the sailors are often Bretons, before being soldiers.

I hope we don't take these secrets to the grave.

I hope we don't take these secrets to the grave.

Dominique tricaud

A NATO exercise was taking place that day, are you waiting for some documents to be declassified?

It's a bit like a lark mirror.

I will not know which document to declassify and obviously I will not be given access to the entire NATO bibliography.

We do not identify any documents that could answer our questions.

HMS Turbulent's logbook was lost, before being found by chance in a cupboard.

Which, for a nuclear submarine, is a bit worrying.

I am not expecting anything from declassification.

What follow-up do you plan to give?

We are currently reflecting with our

and

on various means of calling into question these conclusions before the British jurisdiction.

The media coverage since the

gives me hope that someone is telling the truth.

A lot of people know about it.

If a submarine had hooked up the Bugaled Breizh, the noise would have been enormous, as Captain Coles confirmed.

No member of the crew could have ignored what happened.