When the Prestige oil tanker sank off the coast of Galicia in 2002, it left a vast oil slick which was one of Europe’s worse environmental disasters.
Eleven years to the day after the first distress call from the vessel, a court in Spain has decided that no one was responsible.
The three people blamed for the sinking were acquitted. They were the Captain of the tanker, the chief engineer and the Spanish maritime chief who ordered the tanker out to sea.
The court ruled that a precise cause for the accident could not be established, so criminal responsibility could not be determined.
"No one knows with certainty what could be the cause of what happened, nor what should have been the appropriate response to the emergency situation created by the serious problem of the Prestige,” Judge Juan Luis Pia of the Galicia high court said as he delivered the verdict.
The Prestige was adrift for six days before breaking in two. More than 60,000 tonnes of fuel hit more than 1,800 miles of beaches in northern Spain, Portugal and France.
Maritime birds died en masse and the fishing waters were seriously polluted.
The judge blamed the disaster on a structural fault of the ship due to “deficient maintenance and upkeep checks” but pointed out that it had all the necessary papers to sail.
The court also determined that the government made the right decision at the time when it ordered the vessel towed out to sea, despite the criticism that followed.
