Tax Authority has impounded a container at the port in Algeciras found to hold contraband weapons bound for Nigeria. The 30 weapons included 24 shotguns and six pistols, and were hidden in suitcases wrapped up in clothes behind cars which had been loaded onto the container.El Mundo said a large part of the ammunition which also found in the suitcases is of a type which is banned as illegal in Spain.
No arrests have as yet been reported in the case.

Guardia Civil, named as Santiago A.N., who shot dead an immigrant who had arrived on a patera small boat in Tarifa in December 2000, has been sentenced to six months in jail for involuntary manslaughter.In a long sentence the court in Algeciras leaves several questions open in the case. The official version from the Government Sub-delegate in Cádiz was that the gun went off accidentally during a struggle, but the evidence accepted in the sentence considers there was no struggle and the shot was not accidental. Another immigrant witness said the Civil Guard approached the victim with his finger on the trigger of his gun, and with the safety catch off.
The court ruled the action of the Civil Guard was disproportionate to what he should have done to protect the immigrant, and that it not justified either because there was no evidence either that his own life was in any danger.The Guardia has also been ordered to pay 300,000 € in compensation to the victim’s family, and has also been ordered to pay the costs of the case.

Tax officials and the Guardia Civil in Algeciras have seized 178 kilos of cocaine that was found in a container that officially held dried beans. The cargo was en-route from Callao in Peru to Valencia. Officers decided to search the container that had been deposited in the customs zone awaiting clearance. The cocaine was hidden in five sports bags underneath the bean cargo.