"I am not going to answer, among other things because what the Public Prosecutor's Office says always prevails, even if it is not the truth." This is how the historical leader of the PIL, Dimas Martín, announced his intention to exercise his right not to testify during the trial that this Wednesday has once again brought him to the dock, before the Criminal Court Number 1 of Arrecife. The case, in which the Prosecutor's Office is asking for two years in prison for a crime against land planning, is a separate piece of the Unión case, for the unlicensed works he carried out on a plot of his family's land in protected land, in the Los Rostros area.
"That outburst is not tolerable," questioned the prosecutor, Javier Ródenas, addressing the judge after hearing the words of Dimas Martín. "No, not at all," replied the judge, thus reproving the defendant's attitude. "I apologize if I have bothered you," Dimas ended up saying, after his lawyer also intervened, trying to mediate after his client's intervention. "It is one thing to have the right not to testify and another thing is this," added the judge.
Next, the prosecutor also raised all the questions he had planned, although without obtaining an answer to any. And he also asked that different fragments of the conversations intercepted by the UCO during Operation Unión be heard in the room, when investigating other events this alleged crime was also uncovered, which gave rise to a separate piece of the case.
"Don't you say you are friends with the Seprona people?"
Among other things, during the trial, the calls made by Dimas Martín after Seprona agents visited the works he was carrying out in March 2009 could be heard. "Don't you say you are friends with the Seprona people? Well, I have them here," Dimas says in one of those conversations to the owner of the company that was carrying out the work, Samuel Lemes. "Tell him to report the stone walls, damn it, and if he wants the pool," he indicates in another call, trying to ensure that the report does not reflect all the work that was being carried out.
According to the Prosecutor's Office's indictment, in addition to building a 30-square-meter swimming pool, Dimas expanded three rooms for residential use of approximately 90 square meters and created a paved access terrace of approximately 25 square meters and a wall around part of the property. And all this without a license and without having been able to obtain it, as it is rustic land for natural protection, also within an area of ecological value. "Here it is already finished inside, only the pool is missing," says Dimas in another of the conversations, in which he anticipates how he is going to respond to that complaint. "If someone has seen us here, we say that we were changing the wood. And since the pool is unfinished, we say that it has been like this for centuries."
During the first day of the trial, which will continue this Thursday, the Seprona agent who visited the works and drew up a report also testified. And in his statement he confirmed that "several people" called him asking him to stop that complaint. "Did Samuel Lemes call you?" the prosecutor asked him. "Yes," replied the agent, who made it clear that they did not influence his actions. "I did my job," he said.
"They were driving me crazy, they were calling me from every corner"
The other person who received "several calls" during those days was the mayor of Yaiza, Gladys Acuña, as she herself pointed out during the hearing, in which she testified as a witness. "They were driving me crazy and they were calling me from every corner," "but they did not exert enough pressure for me not to do what I had to do," defended the mayor, who recalled that the City Council adopted precautionary measures, ordering the stoppage of the works.
These measures were ordered in a file parallel to that of Seprona, since the work was reported through two channels. On the one hand, as highlighted by the investigation of this case, the complaint to Seprona was filed by Pedro de Armas, who expressly asked that his name not appear. Regarding the intervention of the City Council, it was initiated by the then Councilor of the Local Police, Miguel Ángel Cáceres, who also testified as a witness and stated that he acted after receiving a call from "a neighbor." There, he decided to send municipal agents, who also drew up a report of the works that were being carried out.
"What a bastard!" exclaimed Dimas in another of the conversations that have been heard during the trial, after the mayor informed him that the order to inspect the works had been given by a CC councilor, with whom he was then governing in Yaiza. "These are sons of bitches. I'm going to call Suso," Dimas insisted, announcing a call to the then island president of Coalición Canaria, Jesús Machín. "Cool off a little before," Acuña recommended.
After listening to those conversations, the prosecutor turned to the witness again, asking her if she thought their content was "appropriate." "I don't think it's appropriate, but I wasn't guided by what I said either, I did what I had to do," replied the mayor, who admitted that it generated "an uncomfortable situation" for her. Even so, she denied that this caused her a "reproach" to act. "I knew that from then on they were going to drive me crazy," she affirmed, insisting that "one thing is what I said" to Dimas in those conversations, and another thing is what she did.
"The General Plan reaches as far as the protected areas begin"
In addition, in response to questions from Dimas's lawyer, the mayor responded emphatically that the works were carried out on protected land. "The General Plan does not apply here. It has separate regulations. The General Plan reaches as far as the protected areas begin," she stressed, when the lawyer tried to argue that the Plan that was in force, from 1973, classified that land as "urban reserve."
Acuña also warned Dimas Martín about this point in one of the conversations. "Dimas, I think that before answering you have to prepare well, because the land is for protection," the mayor told him. And there, Dimas detailed how he was going to "answer" the report of the Local Police. "It is true that I was putting cement on a terrace, but I am not going to tell you that," he explained.
During the first day of the trial, an agent of the Local Police of Yaiza and Dimas Martín's wife, Elena Martín, also appeared as witnesses, although in her case she availed herself of the dispensation not to testify, as her husband is the accused. Dimas's wife was even charged in this piece of the Unión case, since the house where the works were carried out was in her name. However, the charges against her were finally dropped, as it was considered proven that Dimas was responsible for the works. In fact, this has been confirmed by the witnesses who have testified this Wednesday, and also by the telephone conversations that have been heard, in which it was Dimas Martín who spoke of the works and tried to prevent them from being stopped.
