British Autonomy Technology Boss Mike Lynch Participates In Missing Victims Of Yacht Sinking Ship In Palermo

UNSPLASH ILLUSTRATION/Jordan Cormack

JAKARTA - British tech entrepreneur Mike Lynch disappeared after a luxury yacht was hit by a devastating storm and sank off the coast of the Sicily capital, Palermo.

Italian Coast Guard and firefighters rescued 15 people, including a child, after the ship waving the British flag sank when a cyclone and violent sea waves hit the area at sunrise.

The ship carried 2 British-French nationals, an Irish citizen, a New Zealander and a Sri Lankan citizen, the Adnkronos news agency reported. While the rest are British citizens. Recent data, one person is reported missing.

Back to Lynch. The 59-year-old man was released in June by a jury in San Francisco on charges of fraud linked to the sale of his software company, Autonomy, to Hewlett-Packard for 11 billion US dollars in 2011.

Reported by Reuters, the sale confirmed Lynch's reputation as Britain's answer to Bill Gates, but quickly turned bad after Hewlett-Packard recorded an Autonomy value of 8.8 billion US dollars.

Lynch said he was "very happy" because he was released in a criminal trial, in which he took a stand to defend himself, denied committing any wrongdoing to the jury and blamed HP for damaging the integration of the two companies.