British tech entrepreneur Mike Lynch, who was recently acquitted in the United States of an $11 billion fraud, is among those missing after a yacht with 22 people on board sank off the coast of southern Italy during a violent storm, news agency AFP reported on Monday.
Lynch, founder of Autonomy Corporation, is one among four Britishers reported missing while his wife, Angela Bacares, has been rescued, AFP reported citing Salvo Cocina of the Civil Protection Agency.
Two Americans and a person of Canadian origin are also missing. Fifteen people were rescued by coastguard patrol boats and firefighters, including a one-year-old child, the Civil Protection Agency added.
One body was found near the wreck, and six others were unaccounted for, said the Italian fire rescue service.
According to media reports, the 56-metre-long luxury yacht—called the Bayesian—capsized at around 5 am local time while anchored off the coast of Porticello— a small fishing village located in east of Palermo, when the storm swept suddenly up the coast tearing through beach clubs and little fishing ports.
Italian authorities have opened a probe into the incident as the emergency response continued Monday.
Lynch, 59, was acquitted on all charges in a San Francisco court in early June after he was accused of massive fraud linked to the sale of his software firm Autonomy to Hewlett-Packard.
Lynch, 59, was the founder of enterprise software firm Autonomy. He became the target of a protracted legal battle with Hewlett Packard after the US tech giant accused him of falsifying records to inflate the firm’s value in an $11 billion sale. Lynch, however, was acquitted on all charges in a San Francisco court in early June.
Lynch was extradited to the US from Britain to stand trial on the criminal charges.
Lynch, a Cambridge graduate, disputed all the charges and denied any wrongdoing. If convicted of the 17 charges, he would have faced two decades in jail.
