The National Court has increased to 74,500 euros the compensation that a sailor will receive from a ship in which 2.7 tons of cocaine were seized and who spent almost four years in prison for a crime of drug trafficking from which he was finally acquitted.
It is 27,500 euros more than what the Provincial Court of Las Palmas set at the time as compensation for the 1,448 days the sailor spent in prison.
Seven more sailors were acquitted, not so the captain and the shipowner, upon the Court concluding that they were used by the convicted to carry out the transfer of the drug, unaware of what the cargo really was.
The appellant quantified at almost 1.5 million the compensation that he should receive for having been in provisional prison accused of being a cooperator of a crime against public health, from when the boat was intercepted on October 13, 2005, until September 30, 2009, which was when he was acquitted.
At the time, no compensation was recognized, but after appealing to the Constitutional Court, it was ordered to reverse all proceedings, so the State agreed to pay 47,000 euros but then it was requested that this figure be increased, which is now approved at the aforementioned 27,500 euros.
The first amount compensates the moral damage caused while the second recognizes the right to receive a patrimonial responsibility for the money that he lost during the time that he was imprisoned.