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Excerpt from www.washingtonexaminer.com
China has not answered “a legal aid request” from NATO allies investigating the damage done to an undersea pipeline linking Finland and Estonia last year, according to Estonian officials, following a report that Beijing acknowledged the involvement of a Chinese-owned ship.
“We submitted a legal aid request to the Chinese authorities to gather evidence from the vessel and its crew,” Kairi Küngas, who leads the public relations department of the Estonian prosecutor’s office, said Monday. “The Chinese authorities have not provided a response on executing the legal aid request as of yet.”
Baltic investigators have assessed that the damage, which Estonian officials regarded as a “man-made disaster” redolent of Russia’s hybrid warfare tactics, was caused by the anchor from a Chinese-owned vessel. Chinese authorities reportedly have acknowledged the ship’s involvement and described the incident as unintentional.
