Swedes help Danes in submarine case with missing woman
COPENHAGEN, Denmark (AP) - Police from Sweden were assisting their Danish counterparts on Tuesday for clues in the search for a missing Swedish woman who apparently was aboard an amateur-built submarine a day before it sank.
The Danish owner of the submarine, inventor Peter Madsen, was questioned after the UC3 Nautilus sank Friday. Police later arrested him on preliminary manslaughter charges in connection with the disappearance of 30-year-old freelance journalist Kim Wall, who was on a reporting assignment aboard the submarine.
It wasn't clear which media organization commissioned Wall or what she was reporting on.
Madsen has said previously that Wall had disembarked from the submarine Thursday night and he doesn't know anything about her fate. Danish authorities haven't said why they filed the manslaughter charges, or whether they are searching for a body or if they expect to find Wall alive.
Swedish police spokesman Mattias Sigfridsson said Tuesday that authorities in Sweden are providing details about people and places that could be useful to investigators in Denmark, but declined to be more specific.
But he urged the public to "pay attention to what is in the water."
"If you see things that seem normal, something resembling junk, look again, and contact us if needed," Sigfridsson told a news conference.
On the other side of the narrow waterway between the two Scandinavian countries, Danish police said that a statement about the case would be issued later Tuesday to give an update.
Sigfridsson said the main probe is in Denmark, where investigators continue searching for Wall. Madsen made a last-minute escape from the sinking vessel Friday.
On Saturday, a Copenhagen court ordered Madsen held in pre-trial detention for 24 days while police investigate the case.
The Nautilus set out from Copenhagen's harbor late Thursday. Denmark's navy launched a search early Friday after the submarine hadn't returned to Copenhagen as expected. The search involved two helicopters, three ships and several private boats. The navy said the sub was seen sailing, but then sank shortly afterward.
Danish police said they suspect that Madsen deliberately sank the submarine, though he initially blamed technical problems.
Submarine experts from the Danish navy have assisted police in searching the submarine, which was found and was hauled onto land. It's standing on land in a cordoned-off, industrial area in northern Copenhagen.
The 40-ton, nearly 18-meter-long (60-foot-long) submarine sank off Denmark's eastern coast. A Danish military plane, requested by police, has been flying for the past few days over the Oresund strait where the submarine is believed to have been sailing.
In Sweden, volunteers were combing the country's coast. Boats belonging to the Sea Rescue Society were sailing along southwestern Sweden searching for clues.
"We are hoping to find something," the group's spokesman, Fredrik Winbladh, told Sweden's TV4 channel. "We are doing what we can ... we will never give up."