By Elviira Luoma

HELSINKI (Reuters) -A Finnish district court is expected to deliver its verdict on Friday in the criminal trial of the captain and the first and second officers of the Eagle S oil tanker, accused of severing five undersea power and telecoms cables in the Baltic Sea last year.

The trial is among the first judicial attempts to punish suspected perpetrators for damaging critical underwater infrastructure, but the matter is complicated by provisions of international maritime law and the difficulty of proving criminal intent. The three deny the charges.

NATO forces in the region went on high alert following the December 25 incident, one of a string of cable and gas pipeline outages in the Baltic Sea since Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022.

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