The number 3 position of the instruction section of the Court of First Instance of Arrecife (former Instruction Court 3) has taken over the case for the complaint filed by the Prosecutor's Office regarding the traffic fines cancelled allegedly irregularly.
Magistrate Silvia Muñoz has opened preliminary proceedings 711/26 to investigate these irregularities after prosecutor Fernando Rodríguez Navarro filed a complaint that was sent to the Dean's Office of the Arrecife Courts for its distribution, according to EFE.
The irregularities were initially detected by the Local Police of Arrecife, who informed the municipal officials of the existence of sanctioning files annulled or canceled without administrative file.
Subsequently, Mayor Yonathan de León ordered last autumn an internal investigation, which led to an audit and several municipal reports that were sent to the Prosecutor's Office.
The audit revealed “the existence of numerous actions of cancellation of sanctioning files carried out in the computer system, identifying the users who had executed said actions”.
The prosecutor considers that the facts could constitute the crimes of malfeasance, of embezzlement of public funds by the City Council having failed to collect 575,583 euros, according to La Voz, and even falsification of a public document if the entries in the computer system to justify the annulment of the files do not correspond to reality.
The Prosecutor's Office filed a complaint against seven municipal workers and requested several investigative proceedings, such as the statement of these individuals as investigated parties and that of the mayor of Arrecife, Yonathan de León, as a witness, as well as that of the officials who prepared the administrative reports and of those responsible for the audit of the CGI system.
It also requested that the complete administrative file submitted by the City Council regarding the irregularities detected in the management of fines be sent, and that the City Council provide a complete list of the annulled or cancelled sanctioning files showing the date, the user who made the cancellation, the reason, and the amount.
More than 2,200 fines without a file
According to municipal reports, there are up to 2,279 fines without a formal resolution file issued by some competent body. The annulments could have been carried out, according to the Public Prosecutor's Office's brief, by those seven officials against whom a complaint is filed.
In numerous cases, there is no documentary support that justifies annulling those sanctions, since it is necessary to process an administrative procedure that includes an express resolution issued by the mayor's office.
In many cases, according to the Prosecutor's Office, to annul the fine the expression “by direct order of the mayor” is used, which is why De León must declare “in order to clarify this circumstance”.
