Spanish Court Opens Trial Over Giant Prestige Oil Spill
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Version 0 of 1. A CORUÑA, SPAIN — A Spanish court on Tuesday opened the trial of a former ship captain and three other defendants over their involvement in one of Europe’s worst oil spills, the sinking of the tanker Prestige a decade ago, when it split in two and devastated Spain’s northwestern coastline. If the long delay has fueled grievances here in Galicia, where the spill was most felt in November 2002, it has also given the trial special political resonance, coming ahead of a regional election in Galicia on Sunday. A civil society association called Nunca Máis (Never Again) has been leading demands, albeit unsuccessfully, for past and present conservative politicians to stand in the dock and defend the decisions of the government at the time, which many blame for exacerbating Spain’s worst environmental disaster. Among the politicians in their line of fire is Mariano Rajoy, a native of Galicia, who is now Spain’s prime minister. Ten years ago, Mr. Rajoy was deputy prime minister as well as the government’s main spokesman, and as such directly involved in Madrid’s response to the Prestige’s accident. While the tanker ended up spilling 20 million gallons of oil into the sea, Mr. Rajoy initially predicted that any leakage would be contained and only amount to “little threads of oil that look like Plasticine.” That turned out to be wildly inaccurate, as images of Spain’s oil-coated beaches made their way worldwide. Xosé Sánchez, spokesman of Nunca Máis, was among about 200 protesters who braved the rain on Tuesday to stage a demonstration in front of an exhibition center that has been turned into a makeshift courtroom for the trial. “It’s just incredible to see that Rajoy and other politicians who took all the wrong decisions have since managed to remain or even climb to the highest echelons of politics,” Mr. Sánchez said. In the election on Sunday, Mr. Rajoy’s Popular Party is hoping to maintain its majority in Galicia’s regional parliament, even though the vote is taking place amid nationwide protests against his government’s austerity measures. While Mr. Rajoy and other politicians have avoided rekindling memories of the Prestige disaster, protesters said they hoped witnesses would show that Spain’s government ignored technical advice by refusing to provide a safe harbor for the Prestige. “The people who are standing trial are not those who hold the most responsibility for the spill,” Mr. Sánchez argued. The main defendant is Apostolos Mangouras, the Greek captain of the Prestige, against whom prosecutors are seeking a 12-year prison sentence. Two of the Prestige’s other officers and the former director general of the Spanish merchant marine are also on trial. Beside pursuing criminal charges, prosecutors are demanding financial compensation from the ship’s insurers to cover the costs of the spill. The Spanish state on Tuesday raised its total claim to about €4.33 billion, from an initial estimate of €1.9 billion. France has so far claimed €86 million in damages. The trial, however, is not expected to reach a verdict until the fall of next year, with more than 100 witnesses due to be heard in the meantime. The Prestige ran into trouble after being caught in a storm, but was then kept at sea for almost a week while the government of Prime Minister José María Aznar unsuccessfully tried to convince neighboring France and Portugal to offer shelter to the damaged ship. Federico Trillo, the defense minister, even proposed using military aircraft to bomb the ship. Mr. Rajoy appointed Mr. Trillo as Spain’s ambassador to London this year. The trial “should make blatant the wrong decisions that were taken in this accident, in particular because everybody tried to get the problem off their hands,” said María Xosé Vázquez Rodríguez, professor of environmental economics at Vigo University. Eventually, the Prestige split in half as it was being dragged further out into the Atlantic, helping spread oil as far as French shores. The trial is taking place in a country where “justice doesn’t stand out because of its speed,” noted Fernando González Laxe, director of the institute of marine studies at Coruña University. Still, Mr. González Laxe, who is also a former president of Galicia’s regional government, said that establishing legal responsibility was “not an easy task,” given how operators use different jurisdictions to their benefit. The Prestige was built in Japan, flying the Bahamas flag, under Liberian ownership but under the control of a Greek shipping company. It was insured in Great Britain and had American certification. |