FCC, the company in charge of the construction of the Argana Alta Pavilion, has requested the Court in charge of the Jable case to have the Jiménez de Asúa Association, which was involved in this case, to face the payment of the trial costs amounting to more than 1.4 million euros.
This figure is part of the money that Fomento de Construcciones y Contratas (FCC) paid from 2016 until April of this year as part of a bank guarantee requested to pay for the possible civil liability, requested by Jiménez de Asúa, for the money received in the awarding of this sports hall in Arrecife.
The events date back to 2016, when the Jiménez de Asúa Association, appearing as a popular accusation in the case, requested that FCC put the money it had received from the Arrecife City Council for the construction of the aforementioned Pavilion in the form of possible subsidiary civil liability. FCC entered 11.8 million euros for the construction of the Argana sports hall and to guarantee the possible return of said amount, it had to subscribe to a bank guarantee whose cost to date would amount to 1.4 million euros, according to the company's defense.
Interestingly, seven years later and a month before the start of the trial, the controversial Jiménez de Asúa association requested the "separation" from the case and renounced taking actions. Thus, the Court decided to withdraw the request for subsidiary civil responsibilities from both Urbaser and FCC, as well as cancel the FCC guarantee to cover the bond. This is why the FCC defense requests in a letter sent to the Second Section of the Provincial Court "the express condemnation in costs of the popular accusation", which it accuses of making "an instrumental use of the figure of popular action and "as a consequence of its procedural behavior, at least reckless, if not in bad faith".
In addition, in May of this year, the company has sent a second letter reiterating the request and is interested in "the procedural impulse of the actions".
Case against Isabel Déniz and Felipe Fernández Camero among others
The aforementioned company was one of the investigated in the framework of the Jable case, the last piece to be judged of the Unión case, the most complex corruption case in the Archipelago by volume and extension. It investigates the bribes in the contracts between the Arrecife City Council and the companies FCC and Urbaser for the construction of the Argana sports center (Arrecife) and the awarding of contracts for cleaning the municipality, respectively.
Among the defendants are the former mayor of Arrecife Isabel Déniz, the former secretary Felipe Fernández Camero and Dimas Martín. As will be recalled, the oral hearing had to be suspended last June due to the health problems of the former mayor and will resume on September 11
Jiménez de Asúa, "a Trojan horse with illegitimate interests"
The Association of Jurists Jiménez de Asúa has a controversial history. The association intended to exercise the popular accusation in several corruption cases but, when it managed to enter, its main steps were aimed at trying to hinder these procedures, as warned by the Prosecutor's Office, the investigating judges and the Provincial Court, which imposed a fine of 1,000 euros on the association for "procedural bad faith", when trying to remove the investigating judge from the Unión case. Jiménez de Asúa also unsuccessfully filed a complaint against the first investigating judge of Unión, César Romero Pamparacuatro, and the Prosecutor's Office referred to it as a "Trojan horse with illegitimate interests".