An investigation is expected against the Mallorca-based captain of the tragic Mike Lynch yacht over the sinking

ITALIAN prosecutors have opened an official investigation into the Majorcan captain of the Bayesian yacht that sank off the coast of Sicily last week, killing tech tycoon Mike Lynch, known as the “British Bill Gates,” and six other people.

James Cutfield, a 51-year-old New Zealander and captain of the €35 million Bayesian superyacht, will be questioned by investigators on Tuesday about his role in the ship's tragic sinking last Monday.

The news agency Adnkronos and the Italian daily The Sera Corriere reported this Monday that Cutfield, who survived the sinking along with eight other crew members, was being investigated for manslaughter and shipwreck.

According to reports, Cutfield was questioned by investigators for two hours on Sunday, the second time he had been questioned in a week.

It is believed that no other crew members are currently under investigation.

Under Italian law, being charged does not automatically mean guilt, although maritime law provides that a captain bears full responsibility for the ship, crew and all persons on board.

The 56-metre-long British-flagged ship “Bayesian” and its crew were based in Palma de Mallorca before it sank.

The superyacht suddenly sank 50 metres to the seabed last Monday after being anchored off the Italian coast and hit by a strong storm and a freak tornado.

The incident left eight people dead, including Mike Lynch, a 59-year-old billionaire technology magnate who had sailed across the Mediterranean to celebrate his recent acquittal in a major U.S. fraud trial over the $11 billion sale of technology company Autonomy to Hewlett-Packard, in which Lynch netted an estimated $800 million.

Prosecutors alleged that Lynch had cooked the books at Autonomy and overvalued his company by more than $5 billion. However, both Lynch and his former vice president of finance, Stephen Chamberlain, were found not guilty on all counts – only 0.4 percent of U.S. federal trials end in acquittal.

Since then, however, both men have met unfortunate ends – Lynch was killed in the yachting accident, the same week that Chamberlain was fatally struck by a car during a race in Cambridgeshire.

Lynch's daughter Hannah, Recaldo Thomas, one of the yacht's chefs, Jonathan Bloomer, chairman of Morgan Stanley International, and his wife Judy, and Chris Morvillo and his wife Neda also died in the sinking.

The six surviving passengers, all British, have now returned to London on a private jet.