The first session of the oral trial for the Jable case, the most complex corruption plot in the Canary Islands in terms of volume and extension, began this Wednesday in Las Palmas de Gran Canaria.
The Second Section of the Provincial Court is in charge of judging the alleged irregularities found in the awarding of the Arrecife garbage contracts, signed in 2002, to Urbaser (formerly TECMED) and in the construction of the Argana Alta pavilion by Fomento de Construcciones y Contratas (FCC) in 2007. All granted with Isabel Déniz at the head of the Arrecife City Council.
The Chamber will have to judge the alleged "gifts" or presents received by the then mayor of Arrecife, Isabel Déniz (2001-2007), the head of the Technical Office of the Arrecife City Council, Rafael Arrocha, the secretary of the City Council Felipe Fernández Camero, and the president of the Party of Independents of Lanzarote (PIL), Dimas Martin, in exchange for receiving these works, as well as the representatives of the companies that made the bribes.
"Everything that is in the notebooks, written in my hand, is my truth," revealed the then manager and delegate of TECMED (currently Urbaser), Jacinto Álvarez de la Fuente, during his testimony. His blue notebooks were seized by the Central Operative Unit of the Civil Guard when the Unión case broke out. In them, he recorded by hand the cash operations or gifts that he had given to several of the accused.
These notes included cash payments to the former mayor of Arrecife or the former secretary of the City Council. However, Jacinto Álvarez has stated at the beginning of the trial that he "has not given 3,000 euros to Isabel Déniz, but I may have brought her an envelope and a black pearl necklace."
He also acknowledged that he gave her a high-end watch, valued at more than 4,000 euros. "I took the Rolex watch to Isabel Déniz and Manuel Andrés signed it, I didn't have money for such a thing," he added. "I didn't have powers for 3,000 euros or 300,000 euros. I have acted as a camel, they gave me the money," the worker defended himself in his speech.
During his statement, which he offers from Lanzarote for health reasons, Álvarez stated that he gave the then secretary of the Arrecife City Council, Felipe Fernández Camero, "an envelope with money," which had been requested from the company to pay for a trip to Kenya.
On this trip, according to the Public Prosecutor's Office and as Álvarez and the former Urbaser executives have assured, the company paid Felipe Fernández and Isabel Déniz for the tickets to this African country, to which they traveled with their respective partners, as well as a stopover between Lanzarote and Madrid.
The former Urbaser executives
After the confessions this Wednesday of Dimas Martín, Rafael Arrocha and Jacinto Álvarez himself, the former executives of Urbaser and Fomento de Construcciones y Contratas testified. All of them had already shown the Court their intention to collaborate with justice and acknowledge the crimes they are accused of participating in the rigging of the Arrecife public tenders, bribing local representatives and technicians.
An hour later, former Urbaser executive Manuel Andrés Martínez maintained that the company "told Mr. Álvarez to continue forward" with the rigging of the project presented to the Arrecife City Council to obtain the waste management contract. "Jacinto Álvarez enjoyed a high degree of freedom," added Manuel Andrés when questioned by the Public Prosecutor's Office about the payments recorded in the aforementioned blue notebook.
Urbaser not only benefited from the awarding of the garbage contract for a period of ten years, but also modified two previous contracts to which the budget was improved by more than 300%.
Manuel Andrés Martínez has acknowledged that he was aware of the gifts paid by the company to the former mayor of Arrecife, Isabel Déniz, the former president of the PIL, Dimas Martín, and the secretary of the Arrecife City Council, Felipe Fernández Camero. Among the bribes were also stays in five-star hotels and amounts of cash.
"Mr. Álvarez asks us to buy a Loewe bag in Madrid for the mayoress," Manuel de Andrés Martínez acknowledged to the Chamber. However, he assured that Isabel Déniz "never asked him for money," but Martínez did sign the check that paid for the Rolex watch for Isabel Déniz.
Along these lines, another of Urbaser's senior officials, Santiago Alonso, also spoke, who assured that the delegate on the island, Jacinto Álvarez, told them that "there was no way to do anything in Arrecife if there were no payments involved." During his appearance, Alonso confessed that he was aware that these payments existed and, although he insisted that he did not participate directly, he did nothing to prevent them.
"Jacinto (Álvarez) told me that there was a problem and that it could be solved. He didn't tell me the details," said former Urbaser executive Santiago Alonso.
To get the money from Madrid to Lanzarote, the director of the Urbaser Construction Works Commission, Francisco José Martínez, assured that he served as "money transporter." According to his testimony, he delivered a total of 180,000 euros to the head of the Arrecife Technical Office, Rafael Arrocha, in several trips. However, he denied having any more relationship than that.
The three Urbaser workers were fired after notifying the Court of their intention to collaborate and acknowledge the crimes.
For his part, TECMED technician Stephan Jean Antoine denied having made the changes in the project to obtain the garbage contract from the Arrecife City Council. The worker alleged that he had been in Spain for five years when he drafted that specification and that he does not remember what modifications were requested from the company, if he traveled to Lanzarote to make those modifications and also that those changes were made once the tender was closed.
Antoine denied that he was aware that this modification was used to "switch" and "rig" the project presented by Urbaser, offering better conditions with the tender already closed.
Regarding the awarding of the Argana Alta Sports Hall, Enrique José Hernández, who at the time of the events was director of the FCC delegation in Las Palmas, assured that his company paid for María Isabel Déniz's trip to Marrakech. According to his testimony, that request would have been transferred to Hernández by the person in charge of the company in Lanzarote.
This confession supports what was defended by the Public Prosecutor's Office, that the mayoress received gifts in exchange for offering the awarding of the construction to said company.
The last defendant to speak was Miguel Ángel Leal, who assured that he "has no relationship with the case." His name appeared due to the complaint of one of the defendants, now deceased, who assured that the socialist had taken money from the aforementioned commissions.
We will have to wait until this Friday to hear the testimony of the former secretary of the Arrecife City Council, Felipe Fernández Camero, and that of the former mayoress, María Isabel Déniz.
