The Superior Court of Justice of the Canary Islands has sentenced eight of the ten people who were in the dock in the first trial of the Stratvs case. Among those convicted is the mayor of Yaiza, Gladys Acuña, while the owner of the winery, Juan Francisco Rosa, has been acquitted of the crime of influence peddling of which he was accused in this first trial. However, the businessman still has to face the trial for the main part of the case, in which he is accused of crimes against land planning, against the environment, against heritage and fraud, among others.
In the separate piece that the TSJC had to judge due to the parliamentary immunity of Gladys Acuña, only the facts related to the intervention of the mayor of Yaiza and regional parliamentarian were resolved, under whose mandate Stratvs was granted the activity license. Now, the Court concludes that this permit was granted despite the fact that both she and the rest of the members of the Governing Board were aware of its illegality.
In the case of Acuña, the Court condemns her for a crime against land planning and for another of prevarication, in this second case by omission, imposing a total of 14 years of disqualification, as well as the payment of a fine of 10,800 euros. For the rest of the members who then made up the Governing Board, Leonardo Rodríguez, Juan Lorenzo Tavío and Evaristo García, the sentence condemns them to 7 years of special disqualification from holding the position of councilor, in addition to paying a fine of 5,400 euros in the case of Tavío and García, and 10,800 in the case of Rodríguez.
New convictions for Reyes and the secretary
Along with Rosa, the only defendant who has been acquitted is the Cabildo technician Manuel Jesús Spínola Perdomo. For his part, the Yaiza technician Andrés Morales has been sentenced to seven years of disqualification and a fine of 5,400 euros as a necessary collaborator in a crime of prevarication, and the former municipal secretary, Vicente Bartolomé Fuentes, has added in this case a new conviction for two crimes, one of prevarication and another against land planning. In total, the ruling imposes 14 years of disqualification and a fine of 5,400 euros.
The other two convicted are the former mayor, José Francisco Reyes, with whom the file was initiated to grant the activity license to Stratvs, and the councilor José Antonio Rodríguez. Both have been sentenced to seven years of disqualification for a crime of prevarication, although in the case of Tato Rodríguez for omission. And, as in the case of Acuña, the ruling considers that he should have taken measures against the winery and the rest of the Stratvs macro-complex facilities, since he was aware of its illegality.
The sentence, against which an appeal is still possible, has been issued with the dissenting opinion of one of the three magistrates that make up the Criminal Chamber of the TSJC, Antonio Doreste, who advocated acquitting all the accused.
