"This trial is being held before Jable. If I am convicted, I will be discredited. No one can take that out of my head." That was the message launched by the former Urbaser delegate in Lanzarote, Jacinto Álvarez, when testifying in the first trial being held this week against him, in which the only accusation is made by his former company. For that reason, Álvarez directly linked this lawsuit against him and seven other people - including his wife and two children - to his confession in a piece of the Unión case. In that case, he was arrested and accused along with four Urbaser executives in Madrid, whom he directly pointed out when confessing and providing documents that were key to the investigation, including the notebooks in which he had been making notes about alleged bribes for years.
"Is the company interested in tarnishing Jacinto's name to favor other people involved in the criminal process?" Urbaser's lawyer asked one of the company's witnesses, after hearing that statement from Álvarez. "Absolutely not. I can't tell you any clearer," replied the general advisor for legal affairs of Urbaser, who added that it even seems "slanderous" to suggest that this lawsuit is intended to "protect" other accused executives.
However, during the trial, the Public Prosecutor's Office itself conveyed to the witnesses cited by Urbaser its doubts about the company's actions with this lawsuit, with which it maintains that the accused defrauded it of almost 400,000 euros. And it is that although the Prosecutor's Office has not filed charges, it has been present at the hearing, the result of which could later be attempted to be used in the trial of the Unión case. In fact, one of the issues that the prosecutor emphasized the most when asking questions to defendants and witnesses was to clarify to whom Jacinto Álvarez was accountable for what was done in Lanzarote, since what Urbaser maintains is that its former delegate on the island acted outside the company. Even one of the directors who testified as a witness spoke of the "damage" that Álvarez had caused to "the image" of Urbaser.
"It was always consulted with Madrid"
"The power I had was limited. It was always, always, always consulted with Madrid," Jacinto Álvarez declared in this regard. Precisely in response to questions from the prosecutor, Álvarez related that two of the directors accused along with him in Unión, Santiago Alonso and Manuel Andrés Martínez, visited Lanzarote "regularly", "once every two months". "Since the numbers were doing well, when they came they were more interested in other things. Things from the Jable case. Things that they considered important," added the former delegate. Thus, although he later did not want to specify what those "things" were, he referred to the events that are being investigated in that piece of the Unión case, where he and four other Urbaser executives in Madrid are accused of paying bribes to politicians and technicians from Arrecife, both to rig the awarding of the cleaning contract and to later charge the City Council for services that were not actually being provided.
"In the tender specifications there was talk of a 13% profit and it gave a profit of 19 to 21%. If I am getting a profit of 19 to 21%, what am I going to worry about, if I am giving a much higher profit?" Jacinto Álvarez stated to defend himself against the company's accusations, which among other things maintains that he authorized the payment of overtime that was not being carried out and that he charged invoices for materials that never reached Urbaser. "That control was carried out by the assistants. I was guided by the profits that the company gave," insisted the former delegate.
For his part, the former area director of the province of Las Palmas, who currently no longer works at Urbaser, stated that Jacinto Álvarez reported directly to the headquarters, despite the fact that it was not the procedure. "It was the only contract that did not pass through my signature," he stressed, pointing out later that he conveyed this to his superiors, and specifically to Santiago Alonso, and they told him that in Lanzarote he should only dedicate himself to "outstanding collection". "He told me: our concern right now in Lanzarote is to collect," he declared.
Also questioned about this issue, the legal advisor of Urbaser stated that "the only explanation that can be had" that Jacinto Álvarez reported only to Madrid was that when the companies from which Urbaser was born merged, there were "affinities and phobias" among the staff, and that is why the delegate spoke directly with certain directors in the capital. "The processes were not so rigid" and "as a consequence of personal proximity, that procedure is violated. But it is not something that the organization imposes," he maintained.
"I have no record that he has implicated other people"
In addition to cash, the alleged bribes to various public officials uncovered by the Unión case also included all kinds of gifts, which according to Jacinto Álvarez's confession in that case were authorized by his superiors in Madrid. "I have no record that Jacinto has implicated other people. I have not seen any document," assured the legal advisor of Urbaser, however, when testifying as a witness in the trial, he denied that this lawsuit intended to unload all responsibility on Jacinto Álvarez. Thus, he even claimed to be unaware of Álvarez's statement against other directors, with whom he even had confrontations in the Courts during the investigation of the Unión case. "No indications appeared of any person other than Mr. Álvarez like those of Mr. Álvarez," he added when explaining why they did not direct this lawsuit against more company workers.
Regarding the employees who were in charge of the former delegate in Lanzarote, many of them are testifying against him as witnesses in the trial, recognizing among other things that they signed invoices from suppliers for materials that did not actually reach the company. However, Urbaser has not fired or disciplined any of them. It only took criminal action against one, Gregorio Aparicio, who sits on the bench next to Jacinto Álvarez and for whom they only ask for six months in prison, applying his confession as a "very qualified mitigating factor". And in his case, he has not been fired either.
"What did the company tell you about your behavior? Did they reprimand you?" the prosecutor asked this defendant. "No," he replied. "Did they understand it was justified?" she insisted. "Yes," Aparicio replied again, who had just confessed that he convinced workers to ask for salary advances and that they then gave him that money to give it to Jacinto Álvarez, compensating them later with the payment of overtime that they had not actually carried out. "Do you know that you are here for a crime? Do you know that it is your company that is accusing you?" the magistrate who presides over the Chamber of the Sixth Section of the Provincial Court even asked after hearing his statement. And in response to the affirmative answer from the defendant, the judge insisted on the same thing that the prosecutor had already raised: "And have they not adopted any measures? Have they not fired you?"
They did not appreciate "any labor offense" in the worker accused criminally
For his part, the Head of Labor Relations of Urbaser, who also testified as a witness, stated that if they did not fire this worker it was because they did not appreciate "any labor offense" to adopt this measure, despite the fact that they later took criminal action against him. Regarding the rest of the workers who are cited to testify in the trial, and who already collaborated in the "internal investigation" that Urbaser opened after the arrest of Jacinto Álvarez in May 2010, he stated that they all did so voluntarily. "We never pressured anyone," he assured.
The prosecutor asked this witness to clarify why another worker who did not want to answer the company's questions when that internal investigation was opened was fired in 2010. In the case of this employee, he alleged that he had already testified before the UCO and that the agents had asked him not to reveal details of the investigation. In this regard, the head of human resources assured that his dismissal had nothing to do with that, but with his alleged participation in the same events for which they accuse Jacinto Álvarez, and in which in reality, as the prosecutor underlined, other employees who remain in the company also incriminated themselves. They, according to Urbaser's witnesses, have not even been claimed for the overtime that they admit to having unduly charged.
Regarding some of the materials that Urbaser claims that Jacinto Álvarez charged to the company without them being received, such as plants and poinsettias, the former delegate also denied having personally benefited. "A lot of those have gone to politicians and their friends, and I didn't decide it," he assured. Regarding another of the axes of Urbaser's accusation, which accuses the former delegate of having kept material paid for by the company and of having used workers during their working day to carry out work on their homes, it should be remembered that similar events are also part of the summary of the Unión case. Among other things, Jacinto Álvarez once recognized in his confession that company employees had carried out work at the home of the former head of the Technical Office of Arrecife, Rafael Arrocha. In addition, the investigation also uncovered that the company paid social security to the former mayor's domestic worker, María Isabel Déniz.