Judge Rafael Lis, sanctioned by the General Council of the Judiciary for doubts about his impartiality and pending temporary removal from office, has issued a new order in the case he has been investigating for years against former councilor Carlos Espino for his management of the Tourist Centers. In that resolution, issued on April 18, the magistrate imposes a bail of 1.5 million on Espino, 1.3 million on businessman Antonio González Medina, and between 95,616 and 49,428 euros on the other three investigated. And he does so despite the fact that in the same order he states that "it is far from closing the investigation" and, therefore, from issuing the abbreviated procedure or opening trial orders, which are the ones that usually mark the adoption of this type of precautionary measures, if deemed necessary.
It was the controversial Jiménez de Asúa Association of Jurists, whom Lis allowed years ago to appear in the case against Espino, who requested that this measure be adopted. This group of lawyers from Gran Canaria, accused by the Provincial Court and the Prosecutor's Office of procedural "bad faith" and of acting "as a Trojan horse with illegitimate interests" in other cases such as Unión and Stratvs, raised this request in December 2016. However, the judge has not resolved it until almost a year and a half later, in what could also be one of his last decisions before being removed from his position.
It was in November 2016 when the CGPJ approved a sanction against Rafael Lis for a "very serious" offense in the exercise of his position. Specifically, Lis continued to investigate a case that was being used in his defense by several defendants of Unión, such as Juan Francisco Rosa and Luis Lleó, despite the fact that he had already been recused for existing doubts about his impartiality, given that the judge's wife was Rosa's lawyer. The sanction became final a year later, when a appeal by the judge before the Council itself was rejected. Then, Lis went to the courts asking for precautionary measures so that the sanction would not be applied yet, by which he will be suspended for six months from employment and salary.
The Council Already Ordered the TSJC to Remove Lis from His Position
The Supreme Court already rejected Judge Lis's request on March 8, in an order in which it warned that the "general interest" should prevail, stressing that the "proper functioning of the Judiciary would be incompatible with the social perception that those who exercise that power, despite being sanctioned for very serious infractions, continue to exercise it, even if only temporarily," until the merits of the appeal are resolved.
Two weeks after that order was issued and notified, the General Council of the Judiciary agreed to send it to the Superior Court of Justice of the Canary Islands to execute the sanction and remove Lis from his position. However, a month later this has still not been made effective. "The process is in progress," La Voz has been told from the TSJC, from where they confirmed that they already received the notification from the Council fifteen days ago and that they are pending "consultations" on how to execute the suspension.
Meanwhile, Rafael Lis continues in the Court and has adopted this measure at the request of the Jiménez de Asúa Association of Jurists, which has also been accused of defending the same interests as some of the main defendants in corruption cases on the island, some denounced by Carlos Espino, such as Juan Francisco Rosa and Luis Lleó.
Bails of up to 1.5 Million
In the order issued last Wednesday by Judge Lis, a bail of more than 1.5 million euros is requested for Carlos Espino, 1.3 million for businessman Antonio González Medina, and 95,616 euros, 49,428 and 65,000 euros, respectively, for Mario Alberto Perdomo, Gloria Valenciano and Enrique Gutiérrez. For this, the judge relies on an expert report carried out four years ago, now alleging that these amounts must be ensured because there is a "danger" of not being able to recover that money later, in case the case eventually goes to trial and the investigated are convicted.
"This resolution seeks to address the evident risk of loss of assets or resources owned by the investigated persons with which the judicial pronouncement that falls on its economic aspect may be made effective," the order states, which does not specify what circumstances have changed to adopt this measure now, when practically no proceedings have been carried out in the case in the last year and when the investigation is on its way to completing a decade, since it was initiated by a complaint filed in 2010 by the then councilor of the Tourist Centers, Ástrid Pérez.
Regarding the calculation of these sums, the magistrate includes the full amount that these businessmen received from the Centers, increasing it by a third and without subtracting the works that the same expert report does consider executed. In total, although the investigation remains open to the point that the judge indicates that he has not yet determined if there are other operations or people to investigate, the order refers to three operations.
"Kitchen Case", "Data Center Case" and "Web Case"
One of them he calls the "kitchen case" and includes both the work carried out in the kitchen of Jameos del Agua and other works awarded to Climafrical and two other companies of Antonio González Medina. The second, which he refers to as "Data Center and others case", affects Mario Alberto Perdomo and Gloria Valenciano as partners of the company V&A, which was hired for an advisory and consulting service, whose execution the magistrate questions in his order.
In addition, he points out another contract with Mario Alberto Perdomo, to whom the order signed by Judge Lis dedicates a paragraph to describe his activity. "He has been or is a journalist with a long professional career in the press of these islands, with a solid and high intellectual formation, close to positions of the Socialist Party, and with a brilliant and sharp pen," he argues when referring to Perdomo. "Apart from other tasks, he signed opinion articles in the newspaper Canarias 7 and Diario de Lanzarote. A reading of opinion articles reveals the praises he made of the General Secretary of the Socialist Party of Lanzarote and CEO of the CACTS, Carlos Espino Angulo, and, likewise, of the sharp criticisms he made of the 'political enemies' of that one," he adds.
As for the third operation, he refers to it as "web page case" and affects Enrique Gutiérrez Farez, with whom a contract was signed to develop a web portal for the EPEL of the Centers for an amount of 50,000 euros. "From the investigated facts and the proceedings carried out so far, it is clear that there are powerful indicative elements of the commission of the crimes of prevarication, embezzlement and fraud that by themselves and pending the last proceedings to finalize the investigation would force the opening of the abbreviated procedure phase," the judge points out, who at the same time recognizes that "it is still far from closing the investigation" and therefore from reaching that abbreviated procedure phase, without specifying what proceedings are missing until then or those that have been carried out in the last year, in which there has been practically no progress in the case.
