Spain says treasure wreck was its warship

By Ben Harding

MADRID, May 8 (Reuters) - A shipwreck and its precious cargo, which is at the centre of a legal tussle between Spain and U.S. treasure hunters, was definitely a Spanish warship, Spanish officials said on Thursday.

Although experts have long suspected the wreck was a Spanish frigate, Spain said for the first time on Thursday it could prove it was the La Nuestra Senora de las Mercedes, thus giving it sole ownership of the wreck and its contents, despite its lying in international waters west of Cadiz.

Florida treasure-hunting company Odyssey Marine Exploration Inc (OMEX.O: Quote, Profile, Research) recovered gold and silver coins a year ago and flew the haul, estimated by some to be worth $500 million, back to Tampa via the British colony of Gibraltar.

La Nuestra Senora de las Mercedes was carrying treasure back from Peru and was attacked by British warships off the Spanish coast in October 1804. Within minutes of the first shots fired, a huge explosion ripped the vessel apart and it sank, killing more than 200 sailors aboard.

"The mystery is over. Using a variety of methods to conceal what it was doing, Odyssey stripped the grave site that is the Spanish navy warship Nuestra Senora de las Mercedes," James Goold, a U.S. lawyer representing the Spanish government told a press conference at the Culture Ministry in Madrid.

"This company has secretly stripped this ship of coins and other artefacts and then tried to hide this by claiming it did not know of the identity of the ship," he said.

Spain presented documents to a Tampa court on Thursday, which it said proved the ship was the Mercedes. Odyssey was not immediately available to comment on Spain's legal filing.

But Greg Stemm, Odyssey's chief executive, said in an interview on Tuesday the idea that the wreck was the Mercedes was just one working hypothesis and it had so far not been able to confirm its identity.