Businessman Juan Francisco Rosa and former mayor of Yaiza, José Francisco Reyes, are once again jointly charged in a criminal case. The Court of Instruction Number 4 of Arrecife has summoned them to testify on February 13, within the investigation opened two years ago for the occupation of green areas that belonged to the City Council in Playa Blanca, and where today there are private facilities such as Kikoland.
The lawsuit was filed in 2017 by the then councilors of Podemos in the Cabildo, Carlos Meca, Pablo Ramírez and Griselda Martínez, who are appearing in the proceedings as a popular accusation. In December of that year, Judge Ricardo Fiestras decided to admit the lawsuit and since then various proceedings have been carried out, although until now no statement had been taken from the investigated parties.
Now, along with Reyes and Rosa, the judge has summoned businessman Juan Luis Lorenzo as an investigated party. As for the fourth person against whom the lawsuit was directed, the former City Council secretary, Vicente Bartolomé Fuentes, the Court has asked the complainants to provide a new address in order to also send him the summons. Like the former mayor, Bartolomé Fuentes also has other convictions for urban planning crimes that benefited Juan Francisco Rosa. The last one was within the Yate case, in which he confessed to having committed crimes of malfeasance by reporting in favor of licenses knowing their illegality.
The Prosecutor's Office sees indications of criminality to continue investigating
Although Rosa has not yet testified in the case, he had appeared in the proceedings and even filed appeals requesting its dismissal. However, his claims have been rejected both by the investigating judge and by the Public Prosecutor, who considers that there are indications to continue investigating and even to determine if there are more people to whom "criminal responsibility can be demanded".
This is what the Prosecutor's Office points out in the writing in which it opposes the last attempt by Juan Francisco Rosa's defense, who asked that the judge's order be annulled, by which he extended the planned instruction period, after declaring the case complex. In this regard, the prosecutor emphasizes that what is being investigated is "a plurality of crimes against the public administration", that there is "numerous documentation" to examine and that it is still necessary to carry out new proceedings "that have not been able to be carried out within the elapsed time". In addition, she points out that the formal issues to which the defense clings to try to annul that order "do not affect its validity in any way".
Similarly, the Prosecutor's Office has also requested that the other appeal filed by Rosa and two of his companies, Princesa Yaiza and BTL Lanzarote, be rejected. With it, they intend to annul another order from the investigating judge issued on June 19, by which he rejected their request that the case be dismissed.
For his defense in this procedure, Juan Francisco Rosa has once again resorted to the Madrid lawyer José Antonio Choclán Montalvo, who is the one who represents him in the Stratvs case. Choclán, who a few months ago was also hired by Fernando Clavijo for his defense in the Grúas case, was a magistrate of the National Court and after leaving the judiciary he has intervened as a lawyer in some of the main corruption cases opened in Spain.
Assignment for 50 years and totally free
The events that are being investigated in this case focus on the illegalities that marked the development of the Costa Papagayo Partial Plan, which began in the late 80s, and on the agreement that the then mayor, José Francisco Reyes, signed later with Getsu no Denwa, S.L. and Salmepa, S.L. By virtue of that agreement signed in 2004, these companies were allowed to occupy for 50 years and without even paying a fee three plots of 30,000 square meters that belonged to the City Council. Thus, in what should have been public green areas, the Kikoland was installed, among other things, a private children's and sports leisure space linked to the Princesa Yaiza hotel and also owned by Juan Francisco Rosa.
The illegality of that agreement has already been confirmed by the courts in the contentious-administrative channel, with two judgments that have rejected Rosa's appeals and have endorsed the decision adopted by the City Council three years ago, when it declared that agreement null. "It is not only the absence of legal, technical or audit reports, but also the slightest procedure for achieving the agreement," said the judgment issued by the Contentious-Administrative Court Number 3 of Las Palmas in April 2018, which was ratified by the TSJC last January and which described this case as "particularly serious and evident".
Now, as a result of the lawsuit filed by the former councilors of Podemos, criminal responsibilities will also be determined in parallel. "We are facing one of the biggest cases of urban corruption that the island has suffered in recent decades, with an incalculable economic damage to the coffers of the Yaiza City Council, which has allowed the private exploitation of public land that should have been used for green areas, sports facilities or roads," denounced the then spokesman for Podemos, Carlos Meca, when presenting that lawsuit.
"The Consistory has given businessmen millions of euros that should have been used to improve the quality of life of the citizens of Yaiza and the worst thing is that this fraud continues to be committed today, as the Kikoland facilities continue to operate and generate large income for Juan Francisco Rosa," he added then. Two years later, that situation remains, pending the culmination of the administrative process initiated by the City Council in 2016 to recover that land.
