Club Lanzarote has responded harshly to the latest appeal filed by the president of the Cabildo, Pedro San Ginés, with which he is trying to avoid the trial for malfeasance and coercion in the seizure of the Montaña Roja desalination plant. Thus, beyond the agreement that San Ginés announced he had reached with the company to end the contentious lawsuits – and that finally he failed to get it approved in the Consortium or in the Water Council-, Club Lanzarote continues as a private prosecution in the criminal case against the president.
In a letter presented on September 7, the company insists that San Ginés tried to “impose his will on the law”, by illegally seizing its plants to hand them over to Canal Gestión, and maintains that he must go to trial to answer for the “flagrant arbitrariness and injustice of his prevaricating resolution”. Therefore, it asks that his appeal against the order that ended the investigation of the case and that initiated the process to take him to the dock along with three other people be dismissed. In that letter, among other things, the company affirms that a “detailed reading” of the order is enough to “refute in a resounding way” the “reproaches” that San Ginés raises against that resolution and against the investigating judge who issued it.
According to Club Lanzarote, the defense of Pedro San Ginés launches “serious accusations” against this magistrate – whom he even accuses of “lack of procedural respect” - that “lack any foundation”. Specifically, San Ginés maintained that the judge “hastily complied with the exculpatory investigation procedures, preventing the parties from knowing their result”. He was referring to the documents that he himself requested to be incorporated into the case, some of which were admitted by order of the Provincial Court.
“He intends his interpretation to prevail over that of the instructor”
Regarding the content of these “procedures”, the private prosecution points out that all are “resolutions or administrative acts that had been dictated by the appellant himself – in his capacity as president of the Island Water Council – or of which he had perfect knowledge, as they were attached to the administrative files” opened by him or at his request after the seizure. Therefore, he considers that San Ginés cannot allege that the judge did not allow the parties to “know the result” of these procedures, since if he requested that they be attached to the case it was “because he knew their content perfectly”.
In addition, he emphasizes that these resolutions do not justify his actions or eliminate his criminal responsibility, because all of them are subsequent to the seizure, which was executed “without legal protection, without urgency, without justification and without judicial authorization”, in addition to without a single written report that endorsed or proposed that measure. “What the appellant intends is that his interpretation of the result of the procedures carried out should prevail over the interpretation of the instructor”, questions Club Lanzarote, which considers that this is the true “background of San Ginés' complaint”. Furthermore, he adds that his defense “does not even make the argumentative effort to justify why these procedures contradict the instructor's position”.
Regarding the judge's order, he highlights that it includes “in detail the elements that have allowed him to consider, at least indicatively, the arbitrariness and injustice in the actions of the investigated party, such as San Ginés' incompetence to adopt the precautionary measure of seizure, outside the law, totally disproportionate, without procedure and notification to the administrator and without any situation of urgency or need”.
He accuses him of “misrepresenting” the content of the reports
In his letter, Club Lanzarote also denies another of San Ginés' statements, who in his appeal maintains that he had only been charged with malfeasance and not with coercion, arguing that this second crime was introduced for the first time in the order that ended the investigation. “Both in the complaint and in the order of initiation, express reference was made to the crime of coercion”, responds the company, which was the one who filed that complaint.
In addition, he also accuses the president of “misrepresenting” the content of reports incorporated into the case. Specifically, he refers to one issued by the current manager of the Island Water Council, Erik Martín, who replaced the also accused José Juan Hernández Duchemín in the position. “At no time does it say that the plants of my client should be closed”, says the company's lawyer, who emphasizes that “a complete reading (not partial, as the appellant does) of the report shows that Mr. Martín's position is quite different”. “He does not pronounce on whether the alleged sale was included in the authorization granted to Club Lanzarote because he had no power or capacity to do so”, concludes the company.
“No file or judicial procedure was ever initiated” before the seizure
Regarding San Ginés' defense arguments, Club Lanzarote refutes them one by one in his letter, insisting that they are based on “new facts” raised after the seizure. Among them, the reference to the “alleged risks that this activity could entail to the health of people”, with which he considers that the president “tries to justify his illegal action”.
In this regard, he emphasizes that the report that San Ginés has incorporated into the case is from October 2014 and “was prepared after the illegal seizure, so it could never have motivated the adoption of this measure”, since “never prior to the seizure was an administrative file or judicial procedure initiated for any environmental crime or against the health of Club Lanzarote”, nor “any reference is made in the prevaricating resolution or in Duchemín's report, not even in the report made ad hoc by Ignacio Calatayud – of which the judicial order itself says that it was carried out a posteriori to “give some legal coverage to the prevaricating resolution”-, on a possible environmental crime or any risk to the environment”.
To this, he adds that this alleged environmental crime was reported by San Ginés “eight months after the seizure and only as a result of the admission of the complaint” filed by Club Lanzarote. Furthermore, he recalls that these proceedings have already been “dismissed with a favorable report from the Public Prosecutor's Office”, as they found no evidence of a crime in the facts reported by the president.
He recalls that Yaiza had to deny San Ginés
Regarding other subsequent allegations by San Ginés, such as that the desalination plant lacked a classified activity license, Club Lanzarote makes the same assessment. “It was never one of the reasons, grounds or reasons for the seizure”, emphasizes the company, which recalls that the Yaiza City Council itself had to issue a statement to deny the president, clarifying that water desalination “is not contemplated in the law as a classified activity”, so it did not require this permit.
And it also reduces the value of the president's references to a report by the bankruptcy administrators of Inalsa, which was also not referred to when this precautionary measure was adopted; as well as the alleged requirements of the Deputy of the Common to which San Ginés has referred both in the Courts and in his public statements. “The Deputy of the Common urged the Council and the Consortium to act, but not to seize – and even less without powers, without legal protection, without urgency, without justification and without judicial authorization – the plants of my client to transfer them to Canal Gestión Lanzarote”, insists the company's lawyer.
Regarding the urban planning files of the Yaiza City Council to which San Ginés' defense also refers, alleging that they contemplate the plot where the plants are located as public domain, the company recalls that “when a plan qualifies a plot as public domain, it does not prejudge the ownership of the plot, but only its destination to a public use or service”, “in the same way that residential use does not prejudge public or private ownership”, which is “an exclusively civil matter”.
