MIAMI – The Spanish government has responded before a U.S. federal court to the objections of a Florida treasure-hunting firm to a judge’s recommendation that it be ordered to turn over to Spain a treasure valued at more than $500 million, the attorney representing Madrid said Tuesday.

“The documents were presented Monday to Judge Steven Merryday and we trust that he will agree that the decision of Judge Mark Pizzo was absolutely correct,” James Goold told Efe.

In his June 3 report, Pizzo said Spain had demonstrated that the source of the treasure Odyssey Marine Exploration, Inc. salvaged from Atlantic waters in May 2007 was the Nuestra Señora de las Mercedes, a Spanish navy frigate destroyed in battle in 1804.

Pizzo concluded the wreck and its contents were subject to the principle of sovereign immunity and that the loot should be handed over to Madrid.

“It was an absolutely correct decision and the information provided now by Spain and the United States supports that,” Goold said.

The United States government has presented at the same court in Tampa, Florida, documentation prepared by the Justice Department “in defense of Spain’s interests,” Madrid’s counsel said.

The documentation includes the positions of the State Department and the U.S. Navy, as well as those of “archaeologists and other government agencies supporting Spain,” Goold said. “The U.S. government has made a very strong and extensive case before the court in defense of Spain’s interests.”

The Spanish Culture Ministry thanked Monday in a communique the U.S. government for its support, which “represents the common interest of the Spanish and U.S. governments to protect the sovereign immunity” of the Spanish ship.

On July 21, Odyssey presented its objections to Pizzo’s ruling, maintaining that he used the wrong legal standards in analyzing the case.

Odyssey points to what it calls “clear and convincing evidence of the commercial nature of the Mercedes’ mission at the time of her demise,” a factor the firm “believes legally nullifies the claim to sovereign immunity of that vessel.”

“The majority of the coins aboard the Mercedes were merchant-owned, commercial cargo being shipped as freight for a fee and were never owned by Spain,” Odyssey maintains.

The Mercedes sank in action against a British fleet on Oct. 5, 1804, off the coast of southern Portugal, and Spain is invoking not only a claim to the vessel and cargo, but a right to preserve the gravesite of more than 250 Spanish sailors and citizens who went down with the frigate.

Spain’s latest judicial filing also addresses the objections raised to Pizzo’s recommendation by the Peruvian government and some 30 of the descendants of the merchant proprietors of the undersea treasure.

Peru alleges that Spain may be the owner of the remains of Nuestra Señora de las Mercedes scattered on the sea bottom, but that the Andean country owns the coins, which were “mined, refined and minted in Peru by Peruvians.”

The merchants’ descendants fault Pizzo for ignoring the fact that “ownership of the vessel is completely separate from ownership of the cargo.” EFE