Introduction The ship Prestige was involved in a disaster on November 13, 2002, where it released about 70,000 tonnes of oil into the coast of Spain (Abelard 2014). The ship had a flag of the Bahamas at the time of the disaster. The cause of the disaster was a storm, which led to a hole in the hull of the vessel, and the fuel leaked into the ocean. The fuel polluted the Spanish coast, affecting the coastal ecosystem enormously for a number of months. There were also adverse economic issues caused by the polluted coastline. The effects of the spill also reached the French coast. A Greek captain, Apostolos Mangouras, was in charge of the ship when it experienced the disaster. The ship’s crew was saved by the marine authorities. Mangouras was shipped to A Coruña city in Spain, where he was arrested shortly after (Council of Europe 2004). Criminal investigations were opened against Captain Mangouras. He was charged for acting in a way that led to a disaster and caused serious pollution to the environment. He was also charged for disobeying the Spanish and French marine authorities to tow the vessel (Abelard, 2014). Mangouras was taken into custody, but a possibility of being released on bail was available. The bail was set at 3 million euros, an amount that was deemed to be too high and irrational by the defendant. The judge who set the bail argued that the environmental damage caused by the spill was too adverse. In addition, the judge supported the high bail by arguing that Captain Mangouras was not a citizen of Spain, and he had no specific ties with the country, thus he was likely to avoid prosecution by leaving Spain. Main Body Mangouras’ request for the bail to be reduced to 60,000 euros and his advanced age to be taken into consideration in deciding whether to hold him in the pre-trial custody was rejected. In addition to the argument that the crime was serious in nature and Mangouras was a Greek citizen, the judge also argued that Mangouras needed to remain in custody so that he could appear before trial and give a detailed description of what had transpired before the oil spill disaster occurred. An attempt to overthrow the decision to hold Mangouras in custody was rejected on December 7, 2002 (Council of Europe 2004). Mangouras made an appeal against the decision to hold him in custody, but it was also rejected on January 3, 2003. The judge maintained that the case was characterised by unusual circumstances and the evidence available was enough to institute criminal charges against Mangouras. The decision to hold Mangouras in custody and the amount of bail required to release him were cited as being final because his offences caused a lot of public outcry. The Audiencia Provincial noted the provisions of Article 230 of the ‘ UN Convention on the Law of the Sea , 1983’ as the basis for rejecting the appeal. According to the Article, the provision that Captain Mangouras had appealed was only applicable if a foreign vessel polluted the sea outside a territorial boundary, whereby a given amount of money would be imposed as a fine. On the contrary, Mangouras’ case involved serious pollution that happened in territorial waters (Council of Europe 2004). Following thes