U.S. firm rebuts Spanish charges over $500 mn treasure haul

Miami, Sep 24, 2008 (EFE via COMTEX) -- MEXP | Quote | Chart | News | PowerRating -- By Emilio J. Lopez. ).- U.S. treasure-hunting firm Odyssey Marine Exploration denied Spanish government claims that it "secretly" scoured the ocean floor to find a wreck containing a $500 million haul of colonial-era coins.

"Odyssey in this case followed all the appropriate archaeological and legal protocols," Odyssey CEO Greg Stemm told Efe, calling allegations to the contrary false and "inflammatory."

Spain's Culture Ministry on Tuesday accused Odyssey of carrying out "this underwater excavation in secret after having received specific instructions that it was prohibited."

Madrid on Monday provided evidence to a U.S. federal court in Tampa, Florida, that the wreck in which Odyssey found hundreds of thousands of gold and silver coins is the Spanish frigate Nuestra Señora de Las Mercedes, sunk in October 1804 after a battle with British warships off the coast of Portugal in which more than 250 Spaniards died.

Spain is demanding that "all the objects taken by Odyssey from the wreck site," a find the Tampa-based company announced in May 2007, be returned.

Stemm, however, said it beggars belief that Odyssey "would carry out an (underwater excavation) project in secret when we invited the Culture Ministry to send a representative."

Odyssey's CEO referred to a meeting in November 2006 with Culture Ministry officials, a gathering he said was "very friendly and (in which there was a spirit) of cooperation."

"If the culture minister had sought to notify us that we shouldn't touch any specific wreck, they would've had to have informed us officially, not at a meeting we organized to offer our cooperation," he said.

Stemm also disagreed with Spain's assertion that the wreckage of the Mercedes is subject to the legal principle of sovereign immunity, which protects a government's right to its treasures lost at sea.

In his judgment, the wreck, which Odyssey codenamed "Black Swan," "was primarily on a commercial mission," a fact that he said Spanish authorities "neither acknowledge nor dispute."

"We think the evidence is clear and that there also are no human remains" at the archaeological site, he said, adding that the Spanish government's claims that the wreck was a "war cemetery" were an attempt to "give Odyssey a bad image."

Attorney James Goold, who is representing the Spanish government in the legal dispute, said last month that "it is very well documented and is a historical fact" that the Mercedes sank with more than 250 Spaniards - including sailors and civilians - on board."

"It's ridiculous to deny that," said the lawyer, who added that Odyssey's argument that the Spanish galleon was not being used in a military mission is "fiction."

Stemm, however, stressed that Spain's claims ignore the "most important factor in determining" if the Mercedes would be protected by the (sovereign) immunity principle": whether it "was on an exclusively non-commercial mission."

It is "disconcerting," Stemm said, that even journalists have been able to find this information and publish it, yet "Spain scarcely mentions it" in its court filing on Monday.

Odyssey has until Nov. 17 to respond to Spain's claims regarding the ship's identity and the principle of sovereign immunity, which is at the heart of the dispute over the treasure haul.

The company has repeatedly said it will maintain its claim to the $500 million in coins and artifacts even if the Nuestra Señora de las Mercedes is conclusively identified as the source of the haul.

EFE

emi/mc

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