Government appeals against Prestige oil slick verdict

This appeal is at the instigation of the ministry of the environment, which considers the verdict too lenient and says no compensation has been awarded for the mammoth clean-up operation needed in the months that followed.

Having taken exactly 11 years to reach a decision, the court sentenced the captain to nine months behind bars but acquitted the American Shipping Bureau (ABS), which claimed the Prestige was seaworthy.

Captain Apostolos Mangouras had been ordered to move the tanker away from Spain's coast, given its high-risk cargo, but he feared the financial costs of having to tow it and decided not to heed the warning.

When the ship broke in half, the 27 crew members survived, but 77,000 tonnes of oil caused a slick polluting 1,600 kilometres of coast right across the north of Spain and Portugal as well as part of the south of France, destroying the beaches and killing off thousands of species of aquatic flora and fauna.

Had it happened in the summer, it would have killed northern Spain's tourism industry stone-dead and led to multi-million economic losses for the regions of Galicia, Asturias and Cantabria.

Head navigator Nikolaos Argyropoulos and ex-CEO of merchant shipping company Marina Mercante, José Luis López Sors, were acquitted during last week's trial.

Also, the government was cleared of negligence, since the court considers it tried to minimise the damage once the fuel spillage had occurred.

At the time, the PP was in power, as it is now, under president José María Aznar.

Galicia's socialist MP Laura Seara says the government's appeal against the Prestige verdict is merely an attempt to 'keep their noses clean' and curry favour with voters.