Voted Best
ISSUE NO. 1727
9 - 15 August 2018
A GROUP of Almeria environmentalists have called on Spain’s National Court to push for a deadline for the cleanup of radioactive waste from the town of Palomares. The Ecologists in Action group said in a letter to the court that it should ask the country’s Nuclear Safety Council to move forward with clearing the debris. The waste fell from a United States (US) Air Force plane carrying four thermonuclear bombs which crashed in midair in 1966 in what was later dubbed the Palomares Incident. The environmentalists were responding to claims made before the National Court by lawyers acting for the Spanish government. They argued that a cleanup plan drawn up with the US in 2010 was now completed ‘down to the last detail’ and would be undertaken within the next three years. The plan is set to see some
SPAIN’S Supreme Court has upheld a ruling from Andalucia’s high court which sentenced a defendant to almost three years in prison over cocaine found in a package of massage equipment. The court heard the defendant, from Roquetas de Mar, was arrested after French customs officials informed their
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Nuclear option CLEANUP CALL: The ecologists appealed to the court over nuclear waste in Palomares.
50,000 cubic metres due to be temporarily stored in Spain before being moved to the US. The ecologists said cleanup efforts up until now had been made up of the ‘clandestine’ burial of thousands which
they claimed broke environmental rules. The group added the National Court should order the original 2010 plan to be implemented and not one agreed in 2015 which revised the amount down to
28,000 cubic metres. The cleanup of radioactive waste in Palomares dates back to 1966 when a US warplane crashed while refuelling, dropping its payload of four nuclear bombs on Almeria. The bombs did not go off
Jail time upheld Spanish counterparts in Almeria that they had found a suspicious package. The parcel was addressed to the defendant and ended up at a courier’s office after a unsuccessful home deliv-
ery attempt. Authorities opened the package and found almost one kilo of cocaine hidden among dissembled massage equipment. Officers found it had a puri-
ty of 75.51 per cent and a street value of more than €111,000. Prosecutors claimed the defendant intended to sell the drugs onto users. The Supreme Court, based in Madrid, dismissed the de-
but spewed radioactive waste across the Palomares area on impact. Parts of the town remain restricted and contaminated. Several court cases have been launched by residents over health claims.
fendant’s appeal against the two-year and nine-month sentence handed down by the Andalucian Superior Court of Justice. The Andalucian Court, sitting in Granada, cut the defendant’s sentence from six years and six months which he received following a trial at Almeria’s Provincial Court.