The family of a City worker feared drowned after going overboard on a stag party river cruise in Portugal are “praying for a miracle”, a friend said today.
Nishanthan Gnanathas, 32, a risk manager for Mayfair-based hedge fund Millennium Partners, fell from a chartered sailing boat into the Tagus in Lisbon at noon on Saturday.
Mr Gnanathas, from Sutton, is believed to have hit his head after being pushed in as a “prank”.
He plunged into the water “unconscious and without a life jacket.” A six-day search is expected to be called off tonight.
A 32-year-old Briton has been questioned as a suspect and could face a manslaughter charge, but the family are understood to have been told it was an accident and no-one will be charged.
A friend of Mr Gnanathas’s family told the Standard: “His parents and sister are inconsolable.
"They fear the worst but like all of us they are praying for a miracle that he will be found alive.
“He is a brilliant young man. He made his parents immensely proud.”
Lisbon-based Maritime Police chief Malaquais Dominguez said they had determined that the incident “was the result of a prank gone wrong”.
The Foreign and Commonwealth Office said it was providing consular support.
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