“Limit yourself to answering,” “allow the question to be asked,” “do not interrupt again...” These and other warnings have been repeatedly issued by the head of the Criminal Court Number 3 of Arrecife during the questioning of Ignacio Calatayud, who testified this Wednesday as a witness in the final session of the trial for the seizure of the Montaña Roja desalination plant.
Although that decision was annulled by the Superior Court of Justice of the Canary Islands, Calatayud has continued to defend that the seizure was “viable, necessary and proportional” and that he would “subscribe to it again in the same terms.” “Before, now, after, and in class to my students, I will say that to enter a desalination plant, no judicial authorization is necessary,” he stated.
In his statement, Calatayud acknowledged that he “advised” the president, Pedro San Ginés, on that decision, although he did not make any prior written report. And he also ended up confirming that he was working for Canal Gestión, which was the company to which the seized plants were handed over. Before that, however, the lawyer for the private prosecution had to repeat that question several times. “Look, I would like to make some clarification” and “I will explain if you let me” were his expressions, while the lawyer reminded him that it was “a very specific question: yes or no?”.
Later, when the lawyer asked him if he did not consider that he had a duty to abstain from that advice, given the existence of a possible conflict of interest - given that Canal was going to “benefit” from the seizure - his answer was: “I understand not”.
The answer was longer when asked if he is a personal friend of Pedro San Ginés. “I have a relationship of trust with the president derived from the professional relationship of years”, he began explaining, to later talk about the relationship between lawyers and clients and its evolution if “it is prolonged over time”. “Of trust and affection”, he ended up answering when talking about his relationship with San Ginés.
Regarding the “professional” relationship, he explained that it began as “occasional”, until he was hired for the Inalsa bankruptcy proceedings (for which he is now being investigated along with Pedro San Ginés in a new macro-case). From there, according to his statement, the “professional relationship” became “continuous”.
He himself recalled that under the mandate of Pedro San Ginés he was hired by the Cabildo, by the Water Consortium and by the Island Water Council, as well as by other entities dependent on the Corporation that he did not name.
“It is a professional relationship, that is how it begins,” he insisted, when the lawyer asked him about the photographs in which they appear together “having drinks” or celebrating his birthday. “When I arrive on the island, I don't know anyone,” he justified, insisting that later that relationship became “of affection, as with other clients,” but avoiding the word friendship.
"I never hid my relationship with Canal"
“I never hid my relationship with Canal. Never,” he responded sharply when asked about it. However, when the prosecutor asked him to clarify if he expressly communicated it to Pedro San Ginés or the secretary, his response was “I understand that they knew it.” In this regard, it should be remembered that in his first judicial statement in the investigation of this case, San Ginés assured that he was unaware of it, and states that he found out later, as a result of this procedure.
Regarding who called him to provide advice on the issue of the seizure, the lawyer for the prosecution also had to repeat the question four times, because he did not specify his answer. “Evidently, the president asks me without a doubt,” he finally responded.
In addition, he has also been asked for details about that contract, given that he was not personnel of the Consortium or the Council, and he charged for each service he provided. “It was a minor contract. That is, the minor contract is made an order and the invoice is passed. That is how the administration works,” he defended, avoiding the term “verbal contract” that the lawyer for the prosecution has used.
"What I like is for you to answer my questions"
Despite the magistrate's warnings, during Calatayud's statement, his objections to the lawyer who was conducting the interrogation continued to be repeated. “You don't like me to clarify, that is obvious,” he stated at one point. “What I like is for you to answer my questions,” the lawyer replied.
One of them focused on the report that he did end up preparing 10 days after the seizure, to support a measure that had already been executed. “Seeing the complexity, the president asks me to put in writing what he had told me,” he justified.
In that report, as the lawyer has underlined, the two options that he gave to the president were not raised, according to what he stated in the trial. “The report does an analysis of the administrative act, not of my prior advice,” he defended.
In that prior advice, of which there is no documentary evidence, he states that he gave San Ginés two options: the closure of the plant or the seizure. And also that he was betting on the first, because “from the legal strategy, he thought it would give more results.”
“What must be understood, and I think that sometimes it is not well understood on the island, is that it is a monopolistic service”, he defended at another point in his statement. Furthermore, when asked by San Ginés' lawyer, he denied receiving any compensation from Canal for contributing to the seizure and for that company keeping the plants. “What's more, they dispensed with my services. If they had rewarded me, they would have kept me, right?”, he stated, referring to the fact that the following year he stopped charging Canal.
"Did Canal obtain benefits?": "I don't know"
What he has not answered, when asked by the prosecutor, is whether Canal obtained economic benefits thanks to that seizure. “I don't know. Honestly, I don't know. I stopped providing my services in May 2015,” he responded.
And about why he did not raise other options, such as coercive fines for Club to regularize the situation, he referred to the fact that before the seizure “an agreement was tried to be reached” and that he personally met in Madrid with those responsible for the company. According to him, they were trying to “prolong the situation” and the next step of the administration was, directly, to order the seizure.
Regarding the judicial pronouncements that gave Club Lanzarote the reason and the final sentence that annulled that precautionary measure, Calatayud has maintained that “there was never a sentence on the merits of the matter.”
“To my misfortune, because I was convinced that the procedures were going to be won”, he added, despite the fact that he later acknowledged that he himself presented a document in the Courts withdrawing from those procedures, after the agreement negotiated by San Ginés with Club Lanzarote, by which he managed to withdraw from all the contentious issues that remained open.
From “there was no office” to “there was a little office”
Regarding his defense that judicial authorization is not necessary to seize a desalination plant or a treatment plant, the lawyer for the prosecution has asked him if he knew that in the facilities there were also company offices and a house occupied by the watchman, which was also seized.
“What I saw was a treatment plant and a desalination plant. There was no office there”, he began answering. “There was a little office. It wasn't even an office. It was a little place with a little chair”, he added later.
In addition, he has confirmed that he was present at the seizure, according to him as a lawyer for the Consortium, and that the one who asked him to attend was the then manager of that body, Domingo Pérez.
However, Pérez also testified this Wednesday as a witness and denied having requested the presence of Calatayud. “I understand that he was as an advisor to the Council, which was the one carrying out the measure,” he pointed out.
The lawyer for the prosecution also asked this witness how much Canal paid the Consortium during the time it was operating the Club Lanzarote plants - until Justice annulled that measure - and his response was that the fee was not increased, contrary to what Calatayud had suggested. Thus, he continued paying only 1% of the net profits he declared. According to the lawyer, that translated into 19,000 euros “which is not even recorded as having been paid”, despite the fact that in that period in which he operated the desalination plant of another company, the income was estimated at 2 million euros.
Other witnesses
The former deputy of the common, Jerónimo Saavedra, also testified this Wednesday at the request of San Ginés' defense. The lawyer asked him about the requirements he sent urging the Council to act with the situation of Montaña Roja.
“In December 2011 the complaint had been initiated and until 2014 we did not have a response,” he recalled. That complaint was opened by a neighbor and referred to the “abusive” prices, as well as the alleged lack of authorization for the sale to third parties. Therefore, in the absence of a response, in 2014 he sent a new requirement, warning with legal measures.
“But the warnings were because they were not answering you, right?”, the lawyer for the prosecution insisted. “The task of the deputy of the common is to defend the citizen against the administration. I cannot assess whether it has been fulfilled or not.” “Did you not ask them to act with a specific measure?”, the lawyer insisted. And in this case, the response has come from the magistrate, who has interrupted the question. “That is obvious”.
Another witness to testify was the manager who replaced José Juan Hernández Duchemín at the head of the Water Council, Erik Martín. In his case, he intervened in this procedure when he was still an external advisor, and he was also hired to prepare a report after receiving the letter from the deputy of the common.
“There was legal uncertainty with the authorization. If it was renewed, if it was not renewed...”, he pointed out when talking about the Club Lanzarote plants. “I stated that the logical thing was that it be reported, that a legal report be made”, he recalled. However, that opinion was never requested by the accused, as the lawyer for the prosecution has underlined. “Confirms the intent,” he highlighted in his conclusions.
Three experts, one paid by the Consortium
During the last session of the trial, three experts, professors of administrative law, have also testified. Two of them have ratified their previous reports, pointing out that the seizure had “no legal authorization”, that it was “disproportionate” and that it implied a “clear abuse of power” (which they have defined as “the exercise of a power of the administration pursuing a different purpose”).
Among other things, he has questioned that the company was not even given a prior hearing or an opportunity to present allegations and that there was no judicial authorization. “I clearly saw that it did not comply with the law,” said Germán Fernández.
“The administration proceeded without further ado to execute its will, without following the established procedure”, stated Luciano Parejo, who was hired in his day by Club Lanzarote, when he was still exercising the private prosecution in the case. In his opinion, Parejo came to affirm that it was “difficult to find a procedure” with this level of “illegality”, since the urbanization was not yet finished and the promoter was still “fulfilling his duty of urbanization”, so “the situation”, in his opinion, was not even “susceptible to a sanctioning procedure”.
Faced with these two experts, the defense has provided another, Manuel Rebollo Puig, who was hired by the Consortium under the presidency of San Ginés to issue this report. In fact, in his day Podemos came to denounce a crime of embezzlement, for allocating public funds to “the defense strategy of the president” in this case.
When asked by San Ginés' lawyer, Rebollo has defended that it was not necessary to give the company a hearing before executing the seizure, that the president had “powers” to adopt that measure and that there was “proportionality”, although “it apparently sounds strange”. “In law the limit is blurred. Even if the measure is illegal, which I am not going to enter, it does not seem disproportionate to me”, he defended.
Regarding the need for judicial authorization, he began by alleging that “the Spanish legislator seems determined to complicate everything”, but he ended up pointing out that “in his opinion”, “for constitutional purposes, authorization was only necessary” to enter “a home”. “If I am the Court and they ask me for it, I would neither have given it nor denied it.” Later, when asked by the lawyer for the prosecution, he acknowledged that he did not know that there was also a house in the facilities.
When interrogating this expert, the lawyer for the prosecution has underlined that he was hired by San Ginés with public money. He has also asked him what documentation he was given to issue his opinion, and he has responded that only the complaint that had been filed against the president and the appeal against the file that was issued in the first instance, and that ended up being admitted by the Provincial Court, which ordered to continue this criminal investigation.
