2002 oil spill acquittal verdicts granted

A Spanish court has reached the verdict that the government and the crew of the Prestige oil tanker were not responsible for it sinking in 2002. The sinking of the vessel resulted in the worst environmental disaster that Spain has ever seen and 11 years later a verdict has been reached on whether certain people were responsible for the incident.

In 2002 the Bahama-flagged Liberian tanker became damaged in a storm, causing 1,700 kilometres of coastline to be affected by the spread of thick oil. Spain, southern France and Portugal were all affected by the spill, which resulted in the closing of Spain's richest fishing grounds.

After a fuel tank onboard the vessel was damaged, it spent days drifting at sea after being refused docking permission by the French, Spanish and Portuguese authorities. Ultimately the tanker split in two and sank around 250 miles off the coast, while still leaking heavy amounts of oil.  

Wildlife was largely affected, with huge fishing areas becoming polluted and hundreds of seabirds dying. Clean-up efforts involved around 300,000 volunteers, many of whom are still showing signs of ill-health - such as breathing problems - as a result.

Investigations into the incident and subsequent attempts to rectify the spill have been ongoing for a number of years. On Wednesday (November 13th 2013) the Galicia regional high court in Spain declared that the Greek captain of the tanker, Apostolos Mangouras, and the chief engineer, Nikolaos Argyropoulos, were not guilty of causing the disaster.

However, the captain was issued with a nine-month suspended sentence for disobeying the orders of the Spanish authorities during the spill. He was ordered during the leak to move the tanker as far away from the coast as possible, which the court deemed was the correct decision. 

Jose Luis Lopez-Sors, the director of merchant shipping for Spain at the time of the incident was also found not guilty of crimes against the environment. He had testified that he had made the decision to send the ship further out to sea in an attempt to reduce environmental damage.