The lawsuit was launched just days after the long-awaited book about Mr Alvarenga's ordeal had been published.

Acastaway is being sued by his friend's family who claim he only survived 15 months at sea by EATING his pal.

Salvador Alvarenga spent 438 days drifting across the middle of the Pacific Ocean until he washed ashore in the Marshall Islands in January last year.

The 36-year-old was with crewmate Ezequiel Cordoba, 22, when the boat they were in was crippled by a storm leaving them drifting 6,700 miles from Mexico.

Mr Alvarenga, from El Salvador, later told how he stayed alive by drinking urine and turtle blood and eating fish and birds he caught by hand.

And the tuna fisherman described how, after his best friend starved to death early on, he left the rotting body at the boat's bow for six days for company.

Bu the family of Mr Cordoba are now demanding a million

the

coast

of dollars ( about N200 million) compensation after claiming that he was a victim of cannibalism, according to reports.

Mr

Alvarenga's

lawyer, Ricardo Cucalon, told El Salvador's El Diario de Hoy newspaper he denied that the castaway had eaten his shipmate but had instead thrown his body into the water.

He pointed out that the lawsuit was launched just days after the long-awaited book about Mr Alvarenga's ordeal had been published.

He said: "I believe that this demand is part of the pressure from this family to divide the proceeds of royalties. Many believe the book is making my client a rich man, but what he will earn is much less than people think."

Mr Alvarenga was working in a fishing village on the Pacific coast of Mexico's southern Chiapas state when the two men took out a small fishing boat to catch tuna.

The craft disappeared during bad weather on November17, 2012, and no trace of them or the boat was found during an intense twoweek search.

He made global headlines when he was washed up on the remote Pacific's Marshall Islands nearly and year and a half later, seemingly robust and barely sunburned.

After a battery of tests, doctors have declared him in remarkable physical health. He has a spinal injury but will only need physiotherapy.

He later said he came close to giving up hope of being rescued after several large ships came near his small fishing boat but none tried to rescue him.

The castaway said he had talked to God constantly during his odyssey. He added: "I always had faith in God that I was going to live, asking Him every day, every night."

He said he became so hungry he began to grab jellyfish from the water, scooping them up in his hands and swallowing them whole.

He added: "It burned the top part of my throat, but wasn't so bad."