New thriller blames post-Cold War weapons dealing for Estonia ferry disaster

A new movie about the 1994 Estonia ferry disaster opening in Germany this week counters official explanations that the disaster was an accident with a tale of smuggled weapons and secret agents. Baltic Storm stars Donald Sutherland, Greta Scacchi and Juergen Prochnow in what its makers say is part of their effort to force a new investigation into the Baltic Sea ferry sinking, which claimed 852 lives. A 1997 report by Swedish, Estonian and Finnish investigators said design flaws in the ferry's bow door caused it to break off in rough weather Sept. 28, 1994. The 13,600-tonne vessel went down in just 15 minutes off the coast of Finland en route from Tallinn, Estonia to Stockholm. The movie, made in English by Hollywood director Reuben Leder, injects an even more dramatic theory: Russian agents bomb the ship to prevent a delivery of smuggled Russian weapons destined for the U.S. military. Co-producer Jutta Rabe, a German journalist, has made a string of documentaries about the sinking in an attempt to air doubts about the official version of events. The film offers "a plausible scenario," she said recently. After a gala premiere Monday in Berlin, the movie opens Thursday in theatres across Germany. German prosecutors last November rejected a criminal complaint by Rabe and U.S. venture capitalist Gregg Bemis, who led a diving team to the site of the shipwreck in 2000 and collected samples of metal from the hull. Prosecutors rejected their attempt to establish that the ship was bombed after concluding that changes in the ship's metal dated back to its construction and were not caused by explosives. In April, a Swedish investigator reviewing the disaster's cause said the ship sank so quickly because of water gushing down ventilation shafts, a factor not mentioned in the original report.