Photos: Sergio Betancort
The main trial of the Stratvs case has started this Tuesday with a first day in which the defenses have already shown what their main strategy will be, which is to allege that the crimes being judged in this case have already prescribed. This is what the lawyer of Juan Francisco Rosa and other defendants have argued when raising the preliminary issues to the trial, which have been refuted both by the Public Prosecutor's Office and by the popular accusation, and which were also dismissed in their day by the investigating judge.
The statute of limitations of a crime is associated with the penalty that may be attached, which is what marks the time that can elapse from its commission until the date on which criminal proceedings are opened against the perpetrator. Thus, both the defense of Rosa and that of other defendants have begun by refuting the very qualification of the facts, in order to argue that the statute of limitations would be shorter and therefore would have been met when this case began.
This has led them to even deny that La Geria is a protected area, in order to try to reduce the seriousness of the crime against the territory. And not only has the lawyer of Juan Francisco Rosa done so, but also the head of the legal services of the Canary Islands Government, Ana María Quintana, who in this trial represents as a lawyer the former general director of Urban Planning of the Canary Islands, Juan César Muñoz Sosa, and the technicians Armando Villavicencio and Faustino García Márquez.
The protection "has become ineffective" according to the lawyer
In her first intervention in the trial, the lawyer of these three defendants has argued that the declaration of La Geria as a protected natural park "has become ineffective" because the plan required by law for its protection was not developed in its day, and that therefore it was not in force when her clients intervened in the granting of the first building permit to Stratvs in 1999.
"La Geria still has special protection of the soil," the prosecutor replied, recalling the laws that protect this space, even if the administration did not comply with the regulations to regulate that protection in its day. To this, the lawyer of the popular accusation added that it is not only a protected natural area, but also a bird protection area, so it is also protected as a ZEPA area by the European Union.
"The experts will confirm it," added the representative of the Prosecutor's Office, referring to the experts who are summoned to testify in this trial, which is scheduled to last for 25 days and will continue this Wednesday, already with the statement of the defendants.
And it is that after listening to the parties, the magistrates of the Sixth Section of the Provincial Court that make up the Chamber have agreed to continue with the hearing, accepting new evidence and documents provided in this first day by the defenses and by the popular accusation, and pointing out that the allegations about the alleged statute of limitations of the crimes will be resolved in the judgment.
Discrepancy of dates between the accused
With regard to the three defendants from the Canary Islands Government, their lawyer has argued that their indictment occurred "14 years after their intervention" in the Stratvs file and that therefore the possible crime had already prescribed at that time. And the same has been alleged by the defense of the architect of the winery, Miguel Ángel Armas Matallana, who has assured that his intervention -both in relation to the direction of the work and in his role as owner of a part of those lands, for which he is accused of documentary falsification and usurpation- ended in 2006.
However, the prosecutor has recalled that the accusation has been formulated for crimes "in competition", that there is "a criminal continuity" and that "as the facts are qualified", the statute of limitations would be met after 15 years. In addition, she has stressed the contradiction in the dates provided by the defendants themselves, since the defense of Juan Francisco Rosa has acknowledged that the winery was completed and inaugurated in 2008 and not in 2006, as Armas Matallana has argued, who in 2013 had already been summoned as an accused.
For its part, Rosa's defense has had to go further to allege these alleged prescriptions. With respect to the crime against the territory, he has "adhered" to the preliminary issues raised by the lawyer of the Canary Islands Government, pointing out that if the consideration of La Geria as a protected natural area "falls", the statute of limitations is five years, so according to him it would have been met. However, according to the Prosecutor's Office, the works continued even beyond 2008, since in 2011 another adjoining farm was bought and new works were carried out.
In this regard, Rosa's lawyer has already stated that he will dedicate part of his efforts in the trial to demonstrate that the works ended in 2008. And also to question the first summons that was issued to Rosa in this case, when not even those five years that he himself sets as the statute of limitations had passed. On that summons, he has defended that it is not valid because the statement was later suspended by decision of the Court, which had received new documentation on the case and decided to examine it before carrying out those interrogations.
Rosa's defense denies that the crime of falsehood was "continuous"
As for other crimes for which he is accused, such as documentary falsification, he has defended that they cannot be treated as a continuous crime. Specifically, he has referred to the alteration of the deed, which placed the winery on a different farm from the one where it is actually located (the land where it was built did not even belong to Rosa, who acquired it shortly before the trial, getting the legitimate owners to withdraw from the case, in which they were present as a private prosecution).
"That deed was used for various acts, but it is the same document and therefore a single crime. The same document cannot be used to argue that there was a documentary falsification in time," Rosa's lawyer has argued. Thus, although he has acknowledged that the same deed was used for different procedures, including the application for permits and the request for loans, he has defended that it should be treated as an isolated crime and not as a continuous crime, which would shorten the statute of limitations.
For its part, the prosecutor has insisted that there was indeed a "criminal continuity", which began when "it was declared in a public deed that the works are on a farm where they are not" and that it was maintained later, when "subsequent registrations" were made with a "succession of incorporations in the Registry".
In addition, there is the fact that one of the main crimes for which Rosa is accused, the crime against the environment for polluting discharges, did not cease until the investigating judge herself ordered the winery to be sealed in December 2013. This has been recalled by the popular accusation, exercised by Urban Transparency, which has also stressed that the crime against the territory continued until 2012, when it has stated that the grill terrace of the restaurant was completed.
Urban Transparency, legitimized to accuse
During the first day in which only the preliminary issues have been resolved, the lawyer of the three defendants from the Canary Islands Government has also questioned the legitimacy of Urban Transparency to formulate an accusation alone against the former general director of Urban Planning, Juan César Muñoz Sosa, for whom the Prosecutor's Office ended up requesting the dismissal after the investigation was closed.
In this regard, the prosecutor herself has opposed the approach of the defense, pointing out that it is "a totally untimely manifestation" that should have been formulated before. In addition, she has stressed that although the Public Prosecutor's Office has not finally directed an accusation against Muñoz Sosa, it is a public crime, so the popular accusation can act.
In the same line, the lawyer of Urban Transparency has stated that the "Botín doctrine is already overcome" and that the popular action is legitimized when it comes to defending "the general interest, the public interest", in this case when dealing with crimes against the territory and the environment. In addition, she has recalled that Muñoz Sosa was charged throughout the investigation and that in the last order before the opening of the oral trial, the investigating judge continued to point him out among the investigated.
Similarly, she has defended the role played by Urban Transparency, which has been "intervening in corruption cases for 15 years as coadjutants of the Public Prosecutor's Office" and without "malicious intentions", and has contrasted it with what has happened with other alleged groups that have appeared in corruption cases in Lanzarote, such as Jacón and the Association of Jurists Jiménez de Asúa, which have been compared by the Prosecutor's Office with "a Trojan horse with illegitimate interests".
Finally, the Chamber of the Court has concluded that this association is indeed legitimized to accuse alone, given that "they are crimes that affect the community and the law allows it for these cases". Thus, it has rejected both the allegations of the defense of Juan César Muñoz and the technician of Yaiza Pablo Carrasco. In his case, the Prosecutor's Office accuses him of a crime for his intervention in the granting of the license to Stratvs, but the popular accusation adds another of embezzlement of public funds and fraud, for having allowed Rosa to pay less taxes than those corresponding to that permit.