The businessman Juan Francisco Rosa and the former mayor of Yaiza, José Francisco Reyes, have been summoned to testify on January 7, within the case opened for the occupation of public green areas in Playa Blanca with private facilities such as the Kikoland. Both have been charged in the case for more than a year, but have not yet testified.
Initially, their appearance was set for last February, but those statements ended up being suspended and a new date was set for October, which was again canceled. Now, the Investigating Court Number 4 of Arrecife has ordered that they be questioned “as soon as possible” and has already set a date for January 7. Another investigated in the case, the businessman Juan Luis Lorenzo, has also been summoned that day.
In addition to these statements, the statements of all the Canary Coalition councilors who were part of Reyes' government group in 2004, when the agreement was approved by which the City Council gave away 30,000 square meters of public land without establishing any type of fee, are also still pending. Their indictment was requested months ago by the Prosecutor's Office, since as councilors they gave their favorable vote in the Plenary Session, despite the fact that the agreement was not endorsed by any report. The judge upheld this request last August, agreeing to the indictment of all the councilors, although they have not yet testified.
Those who did appear in the Courts as witnesses were two former councilors who were then spokespersons for the opposition: Marcial Valiente for the PSOE and José Carlos Rojas for the PP. In their statement, both confirmed that during that Plenary they warned that the agreement was detrimental to the City Council and that it was being approved without any type of report to support it.
Along with them, Gladys Acuña, who at that time was the spokesperson for the PIL in the opposition, had also been summoned, but her statement was also suspended. Now, “given the state of the procedure”, the judge has agreed that she appear as a witness on January 8.
A lawsuit that is already more than three years old
The case began more than three years ago as a result of a lawsuit filed by the then councilors of Podemos in the Cabildo, Carlos Meca, Pablo Ramírez and Griselda Martínez. In addition to Rosa, Reyes and Juan Luis Lorenzo, the initial lawsuit was also directed against the former secretary of Yaiza, Vicente Bartolomé Fuentes, and the companies Getsu No Denwa S.L. (initial promoter of the Partial Plan where the Kikoland is located and later absorbed by another of Rosa's companies) and Salmepa and Hotel Princesa Yaiza SA, owned by Juan Francisco Rosa.
Shortly after being filed, the lawsuit was admitted for processing, although in the first two years practically no proceedings were carried out. It was from the end of 2019 when the investigation began to advance and indictments were agreed, although the procedure has continued to suffer stoppages -partly due to Covid and changes of magistrates- and is now reactivated with these citations.
In addition, the judge has also ordered other proceedings. On the one hand, after the Canary Islands Court of Auditors has rejected preparing an expert report that the Court had requested, the magistrate has agreed to direct the same request to the General Intervention of the State Administration.
Specifically, he wants this body to report “on the economic damage caused to the Yaiza City Council” by the agreements signed first with Getsu No Denwa in 2004 and then with Salmepa, in June 2006, “taking into account the loss of the opportunity to obtain the payment of a fee by the concessionaire in the event that the operation of the municipal sports facilities had been assigned through the corresponding tender”.
In the same order, the judge also orders to reiterate a request that he had already made to the Yaiza City Council, to report on whether it has initiated any procedure to review ex officio the second agreement, signed directly with Salmepa in 2006. A request had already been sent about this, requesting the City Council to provide all the data of the file if it existed, but the Court has not obtained a response, so it will now claim it again.
Regarding the first agreement, it has already been annulled by the Yaiza City Council, although the municipality still has not recovered this public land. After a long process of several years and after collecting a report from the Advisory Council, the City Council approved in Plenary to declare its nullity in 2016, but Rosa appealed in the Courts, which ended up siding with the City Council. Later, when with that final judgment the City Council ordered the eviction of the Kikoland, the businessman appealed that order again and the matter has returned to the courts, Rosa having even obtained precautionary measures.
However, the illegality of that agreement has already been confirmed by the courts in the contentious-administrative channel, with two judgments that rejected Rosa's appeals and endorsed the decision adopted by the City Council four years ago, when it declared that agreement null. "It is not only the absence of legal, technical or supervisory 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 in January 2019, and which described this case as "particularly serious and obvious".
