A SPANISH court has ordered the state to pay compensation of, £39,000 in respect of each of 1,200 people who have died since 1981 as a result of consuming contaminated cooking oil.
In a judgment yesterday, the court also fined the former head of the central laboratory of the customs service 20,000 pesetas (£100) for negligence, but acquitted six other officials.
Mr Miguel Hernandez Bolanos, former director of the Central Customs Laboratory, was found guilty of negligence for having once drawn up a favourable report on the oil, which was industrial grade.
The three judge tribunal, ruling in one of the most serious cases of food poisoning in modern times, cleared six former officials of Spain's health, food and agriculture departments of charges of" negligence.
The court ordered the state to pay compensation of 7.5 million pesetas (£39,066) to each family of those who died. This makes a total of about £46.8 million. It must also pay amounts ranging from 75,000 to 45 million pesetas to each of about 4,000 people who are handicapped as a result of consuming the oil, according to the degree of physical damage in each case. The number of people suffering some kind of effect is nearly 25,000.
A spokesman for the association representing the victims described the judgment as "a bad joke".
The association was to decide later in the day whether to appeal.
During the case, which lasted several months at the end of last year, Mr Bolanos said that he had authorised the use of aniline to render the oil fit only for industrial use on only one occasion.
In another case in 1992, connected with what became known as the "toxic syndrome", 10 company chiefs and chemists in the cooking oil business were sentenced to terms in prison ranging from four to 77 years.