Pedro San Ginés (CC) had always maintained that the hiring of his close friend Calatayud occurred due to Cobo Plana's resignation from the legal direction of Inalsa's bankruptcy proceedings and that his appointment was essential to avoid causing legal helplessness to the public water company. However, in the statement as a witness by Magistrate Cobo Plana last Friday, September 14, he revealed that San Ginés and Calatayud planned to remove him from the procedure because the spokesperson for Coalición Canaria preferred his friend.
Cobo Plana stated in his declaration that he had never resigned as Inalsa's lawyer and that, moreover, he would never have done so, both because of the legal interest in the matter and because of the considerable fees established for the procedure: 200,000 euros for all the work. It should be remembered that Calatayud ended up earning seven times more than what had been agreed with the magistrate, exceeding 1.4 million euros, under obscure agreements that harmed Inalsa.
The specialist magistrate in Commercial matters also informed the court that he had received a call from Calatayud informing him of San Ginés's intention to dismiss him, something that San Ginés himself later confirmed in a meeting held at the end of October. The witness clarified that he informed them that he was not going to voluntarily resign from the matter, which is why he did not sign any document giving Calatayud the "permission" to replace him. And that if the new president considered it appropriate to change lawyers, he should proceed with the appointment, which would have occurred in the controversial Inalsa Board meeting of January 18, 2010, also under investigation.
In Inalsa's records, as well as in the judicial documentation of the bankruptcy process, there is also no communication of Cobo Plana's resignation, confirming the witness's statement.
In addition, in one of the computers seized by judicial agents during the home searches, a document drafted by Ignacio Calatayud was found for Cobo Plana to sign, in which it was stated that the aforementioned lawyer granted Ignacio Calatayud the "permission", his agreement to replace him in the procedure. According to police officers, said document was created on October 26, 2009, nine days after the celebration of the motion of censure that led Pedro San Ginés to the presidency of the Cabildo.
No trace of the Board of Directors that appointed Calatayud.
It should be noted that in the investigation that is being carried out, none of the Inalsa directors recalled the alleged Board of Directors meeting held according to San Ginés in January 2010 and in which, according to a "certification of the minutes of that session", Cobo Plana's alleged resignation as lawyer of the entity would have been announced to justify the appointment of Calatayud for reasons of urgency, without following any contracting procedure or budget of any kind. The "minutes" of that alleged session of the Inalsa Board, nor the call for it, have not been located either.
The suspicions that no Inalsa Board of Directors meeting had been held in which the false resignation of Cobo Plana had been reported, together with the fact that there is no document in which that alleged resignation was recorded and the location of the document prepared by Calatayud in which it was intended to obtain the magistrate's permission, led to the summons of the then Inalsa lawyer to clarify the doubts about his dismissal.
The version maintained by San Ginés explained the hiring of Calatayud as "an unforeseen event", motivated by the resignation of the previous lawyer and the urgency of not leaving Inalsa defenseless. However, everything in the investigation points to the contrary. It would be, therefore, a perfectly planned strategy and executed in a millimeter way that, in the opinion of sources of the investigation, allegedly required inventing a resignation, falsifying the minutes of a Board of Directors and appointing Calatayud.
Apart from the possible illegalities of that action, the change of lawyer meant a serious economic injury for Inalsa. Not in vain, the costs of the entity's lawyer went from the 200,000 euros agreed with Cobo Plana for the defense of the entity in the entire bankruptcy process to the more than 1.4 million euros charged by Calatayud, through the costs of Inalsa in the bankruptcy incidents and having also charged the entire amount of the common phase, which had already been developed by Cobo Plana.
A surprising chronology
The search of the home of Juana Fernández de las Heras, Calatayud's wife, allowed to locate in a computer a file called "VENIA DE COBO PLANA.doc", dated October 26, 2009, nine days after San Ginés took office.
In those days, the real dismissal of Cobo Plana occurs, who stopped issuing the monthly fees he had agreed with Inalsa, having verified the investigation that the last invoice issued for this concept is dated September 10, 2009.
This situation, however, was hidden by San Ginés from the Inalsa Board of Directors and the Insular Water Consortium itself, the sole owner of the public company, until January 18, 2010, date on which the session of constitution of the administrative body was supposedly held.
It would be a strategy aimed at simulating a false urgency with the objective of hiring Calatayud months later, knowing that San Ginés had dismissed Cobo Plana since October 2009.
