CRIME, NO PUNISHMENT

A Spanish judge has closed an inquiry into Spain's worst environmental disaster. According to the judge, 25 people under investigation had "no criminal responsibility". The case was about the seepage of seven million cubic metres of toxic material from a mine near the Donana National Park, one of Europe's largest nature reserves, on April 25, 1998. The spill from a ruptured waste reservoir at the mine had also contaminated a river, damaging surrounding farmland and killing thousands of fish and other wildlife. Environmentalists and opposition leaders called the ruling a "barbarity" and said they will not let the case die.