Prestige captain, hailed as hero, still in jail
Date: 07-Feb-03
Country: SPAIN
Author: Daniel Trotta
To the shipping industry, he is a hero being made into a scapegoat, a man who risked his life to avoid just such a catastrophe, only to be rewarded with jail on a three million euro bail that the industry calls excessive, even illegal.
Apostolos Mangouras, a 68-year-old Greek shipping master, is so far the only person to have paid a legal price in the case of the Prestige, the tanker that sank last November, dumping much of its 77,000 tonnes of foul-smelling fuel oil into the sea.
The spill continues to pollute Spanish shores.
Now a London shipping insurer is considering setting a precedent by posting bail for Mangouras on humanitarian grounds.
"They want three million dollars (euros) bail for a man who is a hero," said Paul Hinton, a spokesman for the shipping insurer that could voluntarily pay Mangouras' bail on top of some $25 million compensation it is paying for Prestige damage.
"Meanwhile in the United States the music producer Phil Spector is accused of murder and gets bail of $1 million, and he's a wealthy man," Hinton told Reuters this week.
Case prosecutor Beatriz Pacios refused to speak to Reuters.
The Spanish government has come under fire from opposition parties for the way it handled the case, ordering the leaking tanker towed out to sea when shipping and salvage experts advocated taking the tanker to calm waters.
After six days of battering on the high seas, the Prestige finally snapped in two and sank. The government defends its decision as the best of a poor set of options, accusing critics of 20-20 hindsight.
APOLOGY FROM A "HERO"
The captain wrote a public letter of apology to the people of Galicia, saying he was innocent and that he risked his life by staying aboard the sinking ship, trying to avert a spill.
Shipping sources say Mangouras spent seven hours on the foredeck of the sinking ship, attempting to manually attach tow lines on a slippery surface covered with oil and sea water.
Meanwhile government ministers and local authorities carried on with holidays and political meetings, issuing statements playing down the danger, saying it was under control.
Mangouras, who remains cooped up in a high-security prison, is refusing visits from family and revealing nothing about his version of events in a case that continues to grip Spain.
Mangouras's defence lawyer, Jose Maria Ruiz Soroa, said his client has asked his family not to visit him in jail, saying: "He's very proud."
Ruiz has exhausted every recourse to lower the bail for his client, who faces up to nine years in jail on allegations of causing pollution and refusing orders from maritime authorities.
"It is an absolutely exorbitant bond. Completely out of place. Even if it were a crime worthy of nine years, it would be an exorbitant bond," Ruiz said.
The international tanker owners' association Intertanko calls the bail illegal, saying it violates his right to reasonable bail under the U.N. Convention on the Law of the Sea.
