The former president of the Cabildo, Pedro San Ginés, has decided to change his lawyer for the trial for the seizure of the Montaña Roja desalination plant, now betting on a lawyer who has intervened in some of the largest corruption cases that have been tried in Spain, such as the ERE of Andalusia and the Gürtel plot.
San Ginés' new lawyer is Jose María Calero Martínez, who began his career as a prosecutor, but since 2007 has been working as a defense lawyer, after having requested a leave of absence. With an office in Seville, Calero Martínez assumed the defense, among others, of the former president of the Junta de Andalucía, José Antonio Griñán, and has also represented other defendants in the ERE case, in which he starred in notorious clashes with the investigating judge, Mercedes Alaya. In addition, he was also the lawyer of the former president of Betis, Manuel Ruiz de Lopera, and of one of the defendants in the Gürtel case.
Until now, Pedro San Ginés' defense in this case had been handled by Carlos Viña, who is the dean of the Lanzarote Bar Association. However, a few months ago San Ginés already hired Jose María Calero Martínez to present an extraordinary appeal before the Constitutional Court, in an attempt to avoid this trial. Now, given the imminence of the oral hearing, the former president has decided to renounce his previous lawyer and leave his defense in the hands of this new lawyer, who also represented Ignacio Calatayud at the beginning of this case.
Change of defense a few months before the trial
The change of defense was notified to the Court on January 14, when there were just over two months left before the scheduled date for the trial to begin. However, the hearing will be delayed again, after having already suffered a first change. The reason is again that the dates still coincide with some of the Stratvs case and one of the defendants, José Juan Hernández Duchemín, is accused in both trials.
Initially, the trial for the seizure was set for March 16, 23 and 30 and April 6, and was later modified to March 23 and 24 and April 6 and 21. However, one day still coincides with Stratvs, so the Criminal Court Number 3, which is the one that will hold the trial, is waiting to close new dates. This, having to coincide with the agenda of the Court itself and the lawyers, including San Ginés' new lawyer, could delay the trial a few more months.
Petition for twelve years of disqualification
Along with San Ginés, the former manager of the Insular Water Council, José Juan Hernández Duchemín, and the former secretary of the Cabildo and the Council, Francisco Perdomo, will be in the dock in this trial. The trial will be held only with the popular accusation, exercised by the former councilors of Podemos Carlos Meca and Pablo Ramírez, since the Prosecutor's Office changed its criteria after having defended that there were indications of a crime.
That change came after an order from Judge Salvador Alba -who was soon after convicted of corruption in the exercise of his office- in which he exonerated Calatayud, who was represented by the same lawyer that San Ginés has now hired. According to the Prosecutor's Office, since it could not formulate an accusation against the one who had been identified as the "ideologue" of the seizure, it could not do so against the rest either.
However, both the Public Prosecutor's Office itself and the investigating judge and the Provincial Court have endorsed that the case goes to trial with the popular accusation, which asks for 12 years of disqualification for each of the accused for crimes of prevarication. In its qualification brief, the popular accusation maintains that the seizure of the Montaña Roja desalination plant was carried out because it was "the only way that responded to the whim of Mr. San Ginés and his desire to benefit Canal Gestión Lanzarote above respect for current legality and private property".
In addition, the brief recalls that this is not the first time that San Ginés has been accused of "benefiting" Canal. The Superior Court of Justice of the Canary Islands also ordered a review of the award of the contract by which Canal de Isabel II took over the management of water on the island, considering it proven that the specifications were altered for the benefit of this Madrid-based company.
