CORNISH DIVER ACCUSED OF STEALING SPANISH GOLD

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In May 2002 Malcolm Cubin travelled to Spain in search of a shipwreck lying off the Galician coast. Little was he to know that seven years later he would be facing six years in jail charged with destroying Spain's cultural heritage, and the theft of millions of pound's worth of sunken treasure.

Cubin had been contracted by a Falmouth salvage company to help with the extraction of 200 tonnes of tin ingots from the wreck of a Dutch vessel called The Friesland. Being at a depth of 48 metres, it was a difficult operation, and he was only able to spend 12 minutes on the bottom before having to undergo "substantial in-water decompression".

After his third dive, Malcolm returned to Corrubedo to await confirmation from the Galician authorities that the wreck they were diving on was indeed The Friesland.

"The next thing I knew Yanik was in my room telling me we had to get out of the house so the Gardia Civil could search it", said Malcolm. "Very confused, I followed him downstairs and outside where I found Pete and a collection of police officers."

Galicia itself is an autonomous state with its own language, and is situated in the Northwest of Spain. A proud and somewhat paranoid bunch, they nearly had a fit when they got wind of a salvage operation just off their coast. This was due in no small part to the fact that the wreck adjacent to that of The Friesland was a Spanish ship called the Don Pedro, which is rumoured to have been loaded so heavily with gold and diamonds that it's a wonder it ever managed to float at all.

Malcolm Cubin

After being interrogated without any form of legal council and refusing to sign a document that the judge would not translate, Malcolm was let go. That, he thought, must be the end of that.

But now, nearly seven years later, Malcolm is facing the prospect of six years in jail unless he accepts a plea bargain and agrees to pay 5,000 to the Galician authorities.

And he says he is getting no protection from his own government because of EU agreements that were made to combat terrorism by speeding up the transfer of suspects between countries.

"There were warnings about what could happen to people if the European Arrest Warrant was brought in", said Malcolm," and our predicament shows how accurate these warnings were." (Owen Hughes)

The trial began today (24 March 2009).