Spain sends planes to bring back 19th-century treasure from US

Madrid - Two Spanish military planes took off Tuesday for the US state
of Florida, from where they will bring back nearly 600,000 silver and
gold coins that were retrieved from a 19th-century galleon, Spanish
Defence Ministry sources said.

A federal court in Atlanta, Georgia, had previously ordered the
deep-sea exploration company Odyssey Marine Exploration to return to
Spain the treasure it retrieved from a sunken ship off the Portuguese
coast in 2007.

Experts identified the ship as the Spanish galleon Nuestra Senora de
las Mercedes, which went down in 1804. The coins on board, which weigh
nearly 16 tons and are estimated to be worth more than 350 million
euros (464 million dollars), had been minted in Peru in 1796.

Odyssey took the coins to an undisclosed destination and fought a
five-year legal battle to keep them.

But the court in Atlanta sided with Spain and a judge in Tampa,
Florida, on Friday ordered Odyssey to give Spain access to the
treasure by Tuesday. It is to be handed over three days later,
according to the ruling seen by dpa.

At the same time, judge Mark Pizzo rejected a request from Odyssey
that Spain compensate it for taking care of the coins.

Spanish paramilitary police were due to guard the coins, which would
then be distributed among several museums