Spanish
government cleared of blame for Prestige oil tanker disaster
Campaigners express outrage as Galician high court says it is impossible to
establish criminal responsibility for spill
The Guardian
Spanish court absolved the
government of any responsibility for one of Europe's
worst-ever environmental disasters, when the Prestige oil
tanker went down off north-west Galicia.
The Prestige split in half and
sank six days after it ran into trouble in November 2002, spilling more than
50,000 tonnes of crude oil into the Atlantic off Cape Finisterre, ruining
fishing waters and beaches. nly one representative from the government stood
trial, leading many to argue that the real culprits were never held responsible
for their actions.
After an 11-year investigation,
the Galician region's high court on Wednesday ruled the disaster was in part
caused by the 26-year-old tanker's poor state of repair, but that it was
impossible to establish criminal responsibility.
At the time of the accident,
authorities in Spain
refused to allow the vessel into port, a decision widely criticised by
environmental groups. It was being dragged away into the Atlantic when it broke
up, with oil washing up on beaches across northern Spain and parts of France.
The former head of Spain's
merchant marine department, Jose Luis Lopez-Sors, was the sole member of the
then government of the rightwing People's party (PP) in the dock. He was found
not guilty of crimes against the environment.
Only the Prestige's captain,
Apostolos Mangouras, was found guilty of any charge, that of
"disobedience" for his response to the accident, for which he was
given a nine-month suspended sentence. The tanker's chief engineer, Nikolaos
Argyropoulos, was found not guilty. A co-defendant, the ship's second officer
Ireneo Maloto from the Philippines, is on the run.
"Nobody knows exactly what
might have been the cause of what happened, nor what would have been the
appropriate response to the emergency situation created by the Prestige's
breakdown," said the judge, Juan Luis Pía, in a televised ruling from a
court in la Coruña, just miles from where the tanker sank.
Greenpeace described the decision
on Wednesday as providing "a carte blanche to the oil industry to threaten
the environment and citizens".
"The sentence shows that in
Spain we are not capable of passing judgment on an environmental disaster … or
defending the environment," said Maria Jose Caballero, director of
Greenpeace campaigns.
In addition to failing to find
anyone criminally responsible, the court did not find any civil responsibility.
The damage caused by the oil spill was estimated at €4.3bn, according to the
prosecution, but the only compensation ever paid out was the €22m that has been
held since it was deposited in 2002 by the Prestige's London-based insurers. No
further compensation will be forthcoming. "It is an extraordinary
ruling," said a Greenpeace spokesperson.
After the accident, thousands of
Spaniards gave up their time to go to Galicia to help clear up the oil, which affected 1,800 miles (2,900km) of shoreline and 1,177
beaches.
"The court's decision is
absolutely scandalous. There are almost no words to describe it," Juan
López de Uralde of the Green group Equo told the Guardian. "It is a kick
in the teeth to all those people who went to help clean up the oil," said
Uralde. "But we knew this trial had started badly, when the only member of
the government on trial was from such a low level. We have had to wait 11 years
and no one has been found responsible. It's a scandal of enormous
dimensions."
Uralde argued that senior members
of the current government of the rightwing People's party were responsible for
the disaster, but that none of them had been brought before the court. At the
time of the accident, the current prime minister, Mariano Rajoy, was
spokesperson for the PP government, led by José María Aznar.
Greenpeace warned that another
accident of a similar scale remained a real possibility following the court's
decision, which it said revealed that "not only can the companies involved
not be held responsible, but that they are protected by international law … and
neither can you prove negligence or wilful misconduct by policy makers."
The court found "no fault
among the defendants in the worst environmental disaster that has ever occurred
in Spain, which means the real culprits were not tried", the environmental
group added in a statement.
The Prestige was Greek-operated,
officially registered in the Bahamas, but with a Liberian-registered
corporation listed as its owner. In 2003, Spain brought a civil suit against
the American Bureau of Shipping, the international classification society that
had certified the Prestige was "in class" for its voyage, but the
case was dismissed by a court in New York.
Mangouras, a veteran sea captain,
was supported by fellow seafarers, many of whom said that not only did he save
his crew but he stayed with his ship until the last minute,
behaving in a model fashion.