A SPANISH Judge, Mr Manuel Garcia Castellon, yesterday officially closed the investigation of the Banesto Bank scandal after 17 months of work, issuing a summary of 213 volumes containing a total of 77,500 pages, judicial sources said.

The former Banesto president, Mr Mario Conde, is the principal figure accused in the summary, but another 14 former executives of the bank are also named in the court's summary.

Because of the complexity of the case, both the prosecutors and the defence attorneys have a month, rather than the usual five days, to make submissions to the judge. Banesto was taken over by the Bank of Spain in December, 1993.