The trial for the seizure of the Montaña Roja desalination plant has finally started this Tuesday and the tensest moment of the first day was experienced when Pedro San Ginés was being questioned by the lawyer of another of the accused, the former secretary Francisco Perdomo. Thus, as happened in the first trial that was suspended a year ago, the clash in the defense strategy of both defendants has become evident again: San Ginés assures that he adopted the decision advised by the secretary, while the latter denies having participated.
The change with respect to the first hearing has been that San Ginés has accepted this time to answer the prosecutor's questions -although he has continued to refuse to answer those of the popular accusation-, while Perdomo has chosen not to testify, and has referred to what he already declared in his day.
In that statement, the former secretary denied having issued any report endorsing the seizure -neither written nor verbal-, and assured that he only spoke “on one occasion” about the matter with the then president. “I had not studied the file nor did I know the inner workings”, he pointed out, assuring that he was not asked for “any report”.
However, San Ginés has insisted this Tuesday that he had the advice of Francisco Perdomo at all times. However, what a year ago he described as a “verbal report”, he has now defined as “verbal advice”.
In addition, he has stated that if he did not ask for a written report it was because the secretary told him that it was not necessary. “Now he says he doesn't remember, but he told me it wasn't necessary”, San Ginés has assured, who has also insisted that it was Perdomo who told him that he did not need judicial authorization to seize a private property, which included both the desalination plant and a treatment plant, offices and even a house occupied by the watchman of the facilities.
Perdomo, who during the investigation stated that he would not have adopted such a decision without a prior legal report, has remained silent this Tuesday, but his lawyer has spoken for him, by directing his questions to San Ginés. “Did you know that it was going to be a controversial and complex measure, and still did not consider it necessary to ask for a written report?”, the lawyer has questioned.
“No. The legal advisor of the Council, who signed the resolution with me, did not consider it necessary”, the former president has replied, pointing again to the secretary and emphasizing that the decree by which he ordered the seizure of the plants also bore the signature of Francisco Perdomo. He has repeated this several times, involving Perdomo in a measure in which he maintains that he did not participate. However, at the same time he has dedicated repeated praise to the former secretary -describing him at different times as a “reputable professional”, “honorable”, “recognized”, of “impeccable trajectory”... -to the point that on one of the occasions he had to be interrupted by the judge, asking him to answer the question that was being asked.
What San Ginés has not clarified is whether he signed that resolution before or after the secretary did, although he has suggested that it was afterwards. “I can sign, or could, dozens and dozens of resolutions a day. But I generally did not sign any that had not been previously signed by the secretary. I take it for granted that I signed it afterwards”, he pointed out, to add later that he cannot “assure” it either.
In addition, he has not been able to answer who drafted that resolution prepared in his name -and dictated without having a single written report proposing the seizure-; and he has limited himself to pointing out that “his secretary” took it to him to sign. Just before adopting that measure, San Ginés had withdrawn the powers over the sanctioning files from the councilor who had them delegated, Soraya Brito.
The "a posteriori" report of Ignacio Calatayud
In the first session of the trial, another name has also repeatedly hovered, that of the lawyer Ignacio Calatayud, who was a personal friend of San Ginés and is currently being investigated together with him in another macro-case, for the payments he received from the Consortium under his presidency.
San Ginés himself has referred to Calatayud -who at the same time worked for the company to which the seized plants were handed over, Canal Gestión- as the other person who advised him on the seizure. And he was also the one who signed the only legal report that supports the seizure, but which was prepared “a posteriori”, almost two weeks after executing the measure.
“Did you not consider incorporating a written report and yet eleven days later it is requested?”, Francisco Perdomo's lawyer has questioned San Ginés again during his interrogation. Faced with his response, returning to affirm that it was the secretary who told him that it was not necessary, the lawyer has insisted. “Did the secretary tell you that it was not necessary and later told you that it was?”, he asked. “I have not said that”, San Ginés has responded in an annoyed tone, while his lawyer has also interrupted to ask that his client's answers not be “interpreted”.
According to the former president, he requested that report with the seizure already consummated because the owner of the plants, Club Lanzarote, “had warned that it was going to take measures” and wanted to have “absolute guarantees”. “Wasn't the competence of the secretary?”, “what need was there for that report?”, the prosecutor had asked him, who also questioned San Ginés about Calatayud's relationship with Canal Gestión, which was the company benefited by the seizure.
“Don't you think there could have been incompatibility or conflict of interest?”, the prosecutor has insisted, questioning why this lawyer was hired precisely. “It was inconsequential whether he worked or not for Canal”, San Ginés has responded, maintaining that “the only” company to which the plants could be handed over after the seizure was that one, having already been awarded the water cycle in Lanzarote, also under his mandate. “Incompatibility over the decision of whether to seize or not”, the prosecutor has added, emphasizing that if that measure had not been adopted -which was later annulled by the courts-, that delivery of the plants to Canal would not have been made.
“I am glad you ask me that question”, San Ginés has responded to that, affirming that in that supposed prior advice, Calatayud raised the two options, but “leaned” towards ordering the closure of the plant and not the seizure. “I disregarded him. Well, I opted for the least burdensome for the general interest”, San Ginés has affirmed. “I told him, Calatayud, thank you for the advice, but I am going to keep the second one to avoid the shortage”.
“I adopted the decision”, Pedro San Ginés has recognized, although insisting that “it was shared as possible” both by Calatayud and by the co-defendant Francisco Perdomo. "It seems that I am blaming the secretary, but not at all", he has defended at another time.
Key question unanswered
In his statement, San Ginés has also repeatedly referred to the warnings he had received from the Deputy of the Common and the Government of the Canary Islands for the irregular situation that existed with the water supply in Montaña Roja, which was an urbanization where the island network did not reach, so the service was provided through the plants of Club Lanzarote, as it was an urbanization that had not yet been received (and that still is not to this day).
However, he has not answered a key question from the lawyer of the popular accusation. “Did they ask you in any of those requirements to seize?”. Like this one, San Ginés has left dozens of questions unanswered, since he has refused again to answer the accusation, and has limited himself to listening in silence to the barrage of questions raised by the lawyer.
Among them, “what urgency was there to order such a serious measure?”, when the situation was “known and consented” by the administration and existed since 1986, when that partial plan was built. He has also not answered whether he consulted any member or any body of the Insular Water Council before adopting that decision. Or “how much was paid for that report” by Ignacio Calatayud, “how was it contracted” and whether he was also paid “for the previous verbal advice”.
“Were you a personal friend of Calatayud? Did you have any other link with him or with members of his family, for example related to his home?”, the lawyer has also asked, in clear allusion to the new investigation now opened on San Ginés and Ignacio Calatayud, in which his father-in-law, Felipe Fernández Camero, who was the owner of the former president's house, is also involved.
The lawyer has also recalled that the sanctioning file to Club Lanzarote was opened for three minor offenses and one less serious, and a maximum fine of 7,800 euros was collected. On this point, the prosecutor has also emphasized later. “Do you not consider it necessary that there be proportionality between the possible sanction and the precautionary measure?”, the representative of the Public Prosecutor's Office has raised.
In addition, both the lawyer of the accusation and the prosecutor have asked him about the rest of the private plants that exist on the island. In this regard, San Ginés has recognized that there are “half a hundred” and that some do not even have authorization, although he has tried to differentiate that they are for “self-consumption”.
The prosecutor has also had to ask him on several occasions if they had not received complaints about others, even for illegal discharges, to which the accused has ended up responding: “I take it for granted that yes”, although he has recognized that no measures were adopted with any.
“And did it not seem to you of sufficient entity or gravity?”, the prosecutor has insisted. “It has not seemed so to the Government of the Canary Islands or to the Deputy of the Common. They did not warn us that we could end up being denounced”, San Ginés has responded, insisting on referring to those requirements, which urged him to regularize the situation of the neighbors, but at no time did they mention seizing the plants and handing them over to another company.
Regarding the warnings he received from Club Lanzarote, which told him that the seizure they were carrying out without judicial authorization was illegal, San Ginés has recognized that they existed. “I value it as an opinion, with all due respect and affection, that cannot be taken as objective, because it has vested interests”, he has responded to questions from his lawyer.
Duchemín, on the seizure: "I neither think it's good nor do I think it's bad"
The third defendant in the case, the former manager of the Insular Water Council, José Juan Hernández Duchemín, has been the last to testify. In his case, he was the one who proposed opening a sanctioning file to Club Lanzarote for those three minor offenses and one less serious, although at no time did he propose the seizure, as he himself has emphasized.
In fact, in the trial he has not wanted to pronounce on whether that measure ordered by San Ginés was correct. “I am not going to enter into that. I neither think it's good nor do I think it's bad. I do know that the problem was very complex”, he has declared.
However, as manager of the Council he was the one who materialized that order and intervened in the delivery of the plants to Canal Gestión. “That could not be given to anyone. It had to be a specialized company”, he has defended. In addition, he has stressed that it was a “provisional” measure.
The former manager of the Water Council has also refused to answer the lawyer of the accusation, so he has left in the air questions such as whether he “imposed any sanction on Club Lanzarote prior to that seizure” or if he knew that it was the Government of the Canary Islands who had the power to process serious sanctions and “why was he not consulted?”.
He has also not answered whether as manager of the Council he urged any measure against other private desalination plants that operated on the island; or why they seized those of Club Lanzarote “to give them, without compensation, to another company”.
