The company that owns the Marina Rubicón marina has asked to appear now in the Yate case, when the case that began more than 12 years ago already has a final judgment and is in the execution phase. In addition, it has announced that it will file an appeal against that ruling, which, among other things, declares the port's license illegal and considers it proven that the owners - Juan Francisco Rosa, Rafael Lasso and Francisco Armas - bribed the former mayor, José Francisco Reyes, to grant them permission.
The sentence was handed down in April 2017 and was not appealed by any of the defendants, since the nine people who were convicted had confessed to the facts and reached an agreement with the Prosecutor's Office. Therefore, the ruling became final and the execution phase has already begun, both to serve the prison sentences and to make official the annulment of all licenses granted by Reyes in exchange for bribes. And among those permits is that of Marina Rubicón, which a year later has decided to take action against that sentence.
"The pronouncement, whatever its final scope and the way in which it could eventually be carried out, clearly constitutes, insofar as it devalues or disqualifies or limits the aforementioned license, a conviction for the commercial company Puerto Deportivo Marina Rubicón", states the document presented by the company before the Second Section of the Provincial Court of Las Palmas.
Did not address the Court until months after the trial
In its writing, dated April 4, the company begins by pointing out that it addressed the Court for the first time in July 2017, months after the trial was held and both Reyes and other defendants confessed to the crimes. As a result of that request, last March they were notified of the ruling, against which they have now announced that they will file an appeal, when the deadline to file appeals had already concluded for the defendants and the prosecution.
To do this, the ownership of Marina Rubicón appeals to the right to appeal granted by the Law not only to those who "have been part of criminal trials", but also "to those who, without having been so, are convicted in the sentence", something that they understand has happened in this case, since the port's license has been annulled.
Now, the property asks that it be "considered a party in the case" and that it be given "a view of what has been done", allowing it to "intervene in the proceedings" and notifying it of "those that are subsequently carried out", in addition to requesting that it be "duly prepared, in due time and form, an appeal against the sentence". That appeal should be resolved by the Supreme Court, which the first thing it will have to decide is whether to admit it for processing. To do this, the ownership of Marina Rubicón would have to prove that some law has been infringed.
Complains that they were not allowed to "defend themselves in the case"
In the appeal that it intends to file, Marina Rubicón alleges three alleged "infractions". One of them, because it understands that a constitutional precept was violated and "defenselessness" was generated, since the sentence "deprives" this company of "rights" "without having heard it or informed it of the possibility of acting and defending itself in the case". In this regard, it should be remembered that the owners of the port have known of the existence of this case for more than a decade, among other things because they themselves were charged in the proceedings. In addition, its manager and son of one of the owners, Rafael Lasso Lorenzo, testified as a witness during the investigation, in relation to the free mooring that Reyes enjoyed for years in Marina Rubicón.
Similarly, the owners of the port even knew the confession that the former mayor had made before the trial was held, as Lasso Lorenzo himself publicly confirmed, when he intervened more than a year ago in the La Destiladera program of Radio Lanzarote Onda Cero, to deny that his father and his two partners had bribed Reyes.
"They are throwing a lot of unfounded garbage", said the port manager in that intervention, who stated that Reyes would have accepted 6 years in prison and a fine of 300,000 euros confessing to crimes he did not commit. "The mayor's word is not proof", he added about the bribe that José Francisco Reyes acknowledged having received from the owners of the port, without it being recorded that those mentioned have taken legal action against him. And neither then did they ask to appear in the case nor did they later appeal the ruling, which has been known for a year.
The Court has already ordered Yaiza to be notified of the nullity of the license
It has been now, coinciding with the execution of the sentence, when the property has decided to act. Within that phase of execution of the sentence, the Provincial Court issued an order on March 22 in which, among other things, it ordered that the Yaiza City Council be formally notified that the sentence had annulled dozens of licenses granted by the former mayor, José Francisco Reyes, both for hotels and for the Marina Rubicón marina. "Issue an official letter to the Yaiza City Council for the appropriate purposes", stated the resolution of the Provincial Court, which La Voz de Lanzarote already reported last week.
In the case of hotel licenses, almost all had already been annulled in the contentious-administrative channel, but the illegality of the port was proven in this criminal case. Now, what the owners of Marina Rubicón are trying to do is, at least, delay the execution of that ruling, which they themselves point out that they do not know what "scope" it will have for these illegal facilities.
As for the rest of the alleged "infractions" alleged by the port's ownership, they are based on the fact that "the summons of the appealing company was not produced in a skillful manner so that it could assert its rights and defend them as it deemed appropriate" and also because they understand that it incurs in "error". In this regard, the writing recalls the order that dismissed the proceedings against the owners of the port, despite the fact that the sentence considers it proven that they gave Reyes a "gift" valued at 60,000 euros, by allowing him to moor his yacht for free for years in this marina.