"From today, don't give that guy a penny. He's getting on my nerves, let him say what he wants. Not a penny." Phrases like this were heard this Monday on the fourth day of the trial of piece 12 of the Unión case, in which the prosecutor has asked that several conversations be heard to reflect the control that Dimas Martín exerted over the public officials of the PIL. In this case, the message was addressed to the then Finance Councilor in the Arrecife City Council and coordinator of the councilors of his party, José Miguel Rodríguez. "I'll do it, I'll do it. Instructions noted. Zero euros," the councilor responded after hearing the instructions from the man he referred to as "the boss."
However, Dimas Martín has focused his defense on denying that he exerted "control" over the PIL councilors. "I didn't control, I advised," he has been repeating when confronted with the conversations and letters that were intercepted by the UCO and in which he gave instructions on the awarding of works or on who should be paid and who should not. "Look, I can admit that my language may make it seem like I'm ordering," he defended in response to the prosecutor. "I repeat that it's possibly a defect of language," he added at another point, insisting on the same thesis.
In this way, Dimas has changed his defense strategy with respect to previous trials of the Unión case. In the first one, for the payments he ordered to be made to Francisco Rodríguez Batllori from the Arrecife City Council and from Inalsa for services not provided, both he and the other defendant opted for a "I don't recognize myself" every time one of their conversations was reproduced. A strategy that did not avoid the conviction and that has now changed, now claiming that what seem like orders were not really orders.
Repeated warnings from Moya: "The prosecutor asks the questions"
As for the rest of his statement, Dimas did maintain his usual tone, starting each answer to the prosecutor with a "look at this" or "let's see something," and including comments that led the president of the Sixth Section of the Provincial Court, Emilio Moya, to call his attention on several occasions, one of them even raising his voice because Dimas kept talking.
"Now you can't make comments," "the questions are asked by the Public Prosecutor, not you," the president of the Chamber warned him, who had already asked before and had to ask Dimas again to stick to answering the prosecutor's questions. And it is that in his answers, Dimas has been including phrases such as "you can go over the issues a thousand times" and "the prosecutor's indictment is a brilliant writing in which I am shoehorned in"; in addition to questioning even who should have been called to testify. "I'll stick to it," Dimas responded after a new warning from Moya.
"Given their inexperience, I got involved"
"I didn't give orders because I don't have the capacity to give orders. What I can do is recommend. If I did it, it would be because I had a solid basis for doing so," Dimas argued in his statement, in which he assured that the party decided to designate him as advisor to all the party's public officials and in particular to the Arrecife councilors. "In the sentence I was serving, there wasn't a single letter that prevented me from developing my thinking," he defended to explain why he asked them to send him the list of all the City Council's credits, debts and assets.
In addition, he stated that he charged for this work as an advisor, assuring that the party paid him, through the money that the PIL group received from the City Council. "I have an experience that they didn't have," "given their inexperience, I got involved," Dimas argued, who even carried out this "advice" from prison. "The fact that I was serving a sentence does not prevent me from advising," he maintained, reiterating that within that work what he did was "recommend" and denying that he had the capacity to give "orders" or make decisions.
However, in the conversations that have been reproduced during the trial, he was even heard offering a job to the then director of the Tahíche penitentiary center, where he was serving his sentence, given that he was going to be replaced. "I hope nothing of mine goes backwards," Dimas told him, after asking him if he already knew who was going to replace him.
The "blocking" and "unblocking" of the Neighborhood Plan
Regarding the possible placement of the prison director in the Arrecife City Council, Dimas gave him different options within the areas managed by the PIL and explained that for the moment they only had the councilors and that they had not yet brought anyone in, except "a surveyor" who intervened in issues related to the Neighborhood Plan.
Other conversations have also been heard about this Neighborhood Plan promoted by the PIL at the request of the prosecutor, who had previously asked Dimas if he had "blocked" the awarding of these works. "I don't block anything," he replied. However, another call with José Miguel Rodríguez was then heard in which the councilor told him that he had "a problem," that he needed to unblock the Neighborhood Plan "but now" and have it awarded before approving the new budgets. "I'll unblock it for you on Monday," Dimas replied. "Okay, because if not it's a problem," the councilor insisted.
In another conversation, Martín Paredes tells Dimas that the Neighborhood Plan has already been awarded to a company "It can't be, it can't be. José Miguel left with very clear instructions this morning," replies the historical leader of the PIL, who just before had denied that he gave "clear, precise and concrete instructions to his councilors." When the prosecutor asked him the same question again after listening to the conversation, Dimas replied that the instructions he gave to Rodríguez were so that "everything would be transparent," because "it seems there were rumors," which "is the problem of this island." "I told him, take care," he added.
"This can't be, I want to talk to him seriously"
In addition, along with these, other conversations have been heard in which he gave instructions -"recommendations," according to Dimas- to "not pay a penny" to FCC; in which he asked the councilor if he had already "decided" who he was going to award the works of Zapatero's Plan E to, and in which he even spoke of taking measures with the head of the Technical Office, Rafael Arrocha, who is also accused in the case.
"See if we can meet with him, because this is already going too far. This can't be, I want to talk to him seriously," Dimas tells José Miguel Rodríguez, complaining that they haven't passed him the specifications of the garbage contract yet. "Look, I think we've had many considerations. We'll see each other alone and we're going to make a decision," he adds in another call when talking about Arrocha.
In addition, they have also made him read one of his letters addressed to José Miguel Rodríguez, in which he clearly said "don't pay Castellano". He was referring to the invoices of one of the complainants in this case, who stated that they had demanded a commission from him in order to collect the money that the City Council owed him, which amounted to about one million euros. According to Dimas, he only "recommended" not paying a part of that money, corresponding to invoices for cleaning services, because it seemed "scandalous" to him.
"Recommendation" to award a "minor work" to Lemes
Regarding his intervention in the awarding of contracts, Dimas has only acknowledged that he once "openly" recommended that a work be awarded to one of the defendants, Samuel Lemes, but because it was "a minor contract that could be awarded directly. However, the company of which Lemes was attorney, belonging to his father, had two other contracts with the Arrecife City Council.
In the trial, a conversation that Dimas had with a member of the PIL youth, Dayrán Muñoz, was also heard, in which he explained that he was talking to a builder "to get money for the party". "This boy was always around the party with fantasies," Dimas has stated, who just before had said that he didn't remember Dayrán. "He said that something had been talked about with a builder. I don't know which one because he didn't specify," Dimas defended. "It didn't seem appropriate to continue talking on the phone about something as delicate as that," he added to explain why he summoned him to continue talking in person. However, according to Dimas, what he told him later when they met was that "that's not the way to proceed."
However, he later added to questions from his lawyer that "it is normal for businessmen to collaborate with the sustenance of a political party." "That's what they live on, that's what political parties are sustained on," Dimas has maintained, adding that they also live on the money they receive from the administrations where they have representation.
