The ruling of one of the central pieces of the Unión case has not only endorsed the investigation of this case again, rejecting once again all the alleged nullities to which the accused have been trying to cling for years to avoid convictions, but also expressly recognizes the "brilliant" work carried out by both the Investigating Court and the Public Prosecutor's Office. All this in a case that the Sixth Section of the Provincial Court emphasizes is of "unusual complexity", with "multiple defendants and multiple lines of investigation".
"We are obliged to praise the excellent performance of the illustrious magistrate who completed the investigation," says this ruling of part number 12 of Unión, whose decision was advanced last Saturday by La Voz de Lanzarote. The Court refers to the work of Judge Silvia Muñoz, who took charge of the Unión case in March 2013 and gave a definitive boost to the procedure - which at that time had already changed judges four times - closing the investigation of all the parts and taking them to trial.
In addition, it especially and effusively praises the order with which Silvia Muñoz closed the investigation of this part, who has also been the investigating judge in the Stratvs case, whose main trial will be held next year. "Despite the years of service in the criminal order of the members of this Chamber, we had never found such a prolific and scrupulous order as the one we are dealing with now, both when describing the facts and when listing the evidence proceedings," says the Sixth Section, which even states that this order "should be an example of good practice at the Judicial School of Barcelona for future Judges". The same applies to the prosecutor's indictment, Javier Ródenas, which he describes as "exemplary" and argues that "it should serve as an example in the training of representatives of the Public Prosecutor's Office".
Even with respect to the deadlines for this investigation, the ruling highlights that "despite the "unusual complexity" of the case, the investigation of this part began in 2009 and culminated in 2014, and assumes responsibility for the delay that the holding of the trial has suffered afterwards. "It is true that in that period early evidence has been practiced and that some session has had to be postponed due to coincidence of appointments, but it is also true that the main cause of the delay was the tight ("very tight") schedule of this section," he specifies when resolving the request that a reduction in penalties be accepted for undue delays.
An "motivated" and "absolutely necessary" investigation
The ruling thus represents a strong support for this case, of which it recalls that "the investigation and the lack of judicial control of the procedure have been criticized in many moments", when the reality is that all the parts that have gone to trial have ended in conviction for almost all the accused and that all the alleged causes of nullity that the defenses have repeatedly invoked have been rejected.
In addition, journalists such as Francisco Chavanel and media such as Canarias 7 and Lancelot, owned by businessman Juan Francisco Rosa, have also been convicted for disseminating false information to discredit this case, attacking the honor of the people who initiated this procedure, such as prosecutor Ignacio Stampa - who today works in the Anti-Corruption Prosecutor's Office in Madrid and is assigned to cases such as that of Commissioner Villarejo - and Judge César Romero Pamparacuatro.
Thus, this new ruling reiterates that there were no illegal detentions, no illegal wiretaps, no illegal recordings, no manipulated orders; but an "motivated" investigation in accordance with the crimes that it allowed to uncover. Regarding the extensions of the judicial authorization of these telephone wiretaps, the ruling indicates that it was "absolutely necessary given the progress of the investigation and the collection of new data that is being obtained as a result of the performance of such telephone interventions". And it is that although wiretaps began for some crimes, thanks to them others were uncovered that caused the number of defendants to multiply, becoming the largest case against corruption opened in the history of the Canary Islands.
Irony and "confessions" of the magistrates
Regarding some of the arguments most repeated by both some defendants and the media that have been defending their theses for years, the ruling responds this time even with irony. Thus, regarding the fact that the first investigating judge in this case, César Romero Pamparacuatro, signed some orders on dates when he was on vacation, the magistrates of the Sixth Section point out that they see themselves 'obliged to confess', as can be seen from the date of this ruling, that part of it has been drafted in the month of August, in which each and every one of the magistrates that make up the Chamber have remained on vacation". "We hope that such 'daring' does not entail the nullity of this ruling," they add.
Next, they recall that when the investigating judge "committed the audacity" of working while on vacation, he still had full competence and jurisdiction over the case to intervene in it, as he did, for example, by extending some telephone wiretaps when the authorization was about to expire, which was issued for three months. In fact, he emphasizes that this fact precisely "reveals the evident existence of control" of the case and of "the deadlines" by the magistrate.
Similarly, the ruling also responds to another of the defendants' arguments, which even questioned the authenticity of several orders. To this end, the defense of the former PIL councilor Antonio Machín - who has received the highest sentence in this latest ruling, even above that of Dimas Martín, and who was represented by Felipe Fernández Camero's daughter, Juana Fernández de las Heras - presented an expert report in which he pointed out that there were resolutions of the judge that "were drawn up on up to three different computers", thus trying to question their validity.
In this regard, the Court responds again by giving the example of its own ruling. "If any expert were to analyze the metadata, they would conclude that it has been drawn up on more than one computer, we hope that its nullity will not be invoked for this reason," the magistrates ironically add again, to show what the prosecutor already warned during the trial, when pointing out that the arguments of the defenses are full of "aspects of fabulation" to try to annul both the case and the evidence. Evidence whose content they have not refuted at any time, focusing their defense only on looking for formal aspects that would invalidate them. "The lamp of nullity has been rubbed a lot and the genius no longer comes out," Ródenas warned on the first day of the hearing of this trial, in which he accused the lawyer Juana Fernández de las Heras, whose father is accused and awaiting trial in another part of Unión, of "procedural disloyalty".
"It is the corrupt who address Mr. Castellano"
In addition, the ruling also rejects another of the arguments of the defenses, which also attacked the UCO agents and even suggested that they had "induced" a crime in order to launch this operation. With this they tried to draw a parallel with a case that ended up being annulled in Madrid, but that has nothing to do with what happened in the Unión case, as the Court makes clear.
In the case of this part number 12, it recalls that the origin is in the complaint filed by the businessman José Antonio Castellano and his son, Isaac Castellano, when they were "extorted" by the PIL councilors in Arrecife "for the payment of a commission", as a requirement to be able to collect the money that the City Council owed to their company. It was at that time when the UCO took charge of that investigation, joining it to the proceedings that it already had open on the island for the attempted bribery reported by Carlos Espino.
"The incitement does not come from the complainants, the complainants do not seek to discover corruption in the Arrecife City Council, but it is the corrupt who address Mr. Castellano to achieve (continue) with their personal and partisan profit. The fact that the complainants brought the extortion to the attention of the UCO does not mean that it caused the councilors to want to commit a crime (so much so that they had already been dedicating themselves to their illicit procedure for some time before)", the ruling points out, which insists that the agents "limited themselves to observing" that criminal conduct "until the delivery of the 95,000 euros to Matías Curbelo", when the operation broke out with the first arrests in the bar La Tavernetta.
"The demands far exceeded the more than famous 3%"
Regarding the plot uncovered and condemned in this part of Unión, with penalties for ten defendants and declaration of guilt of two others who died during the investigation (Matías Curbelo himself, who in addition to being Dimas's right-hand man was treasurer of the PIL, and the former councilor José Miguel Rodríguez), the ruling points out that the "demands" they made to the businessmen "far exceeded the more than famous 3%".
In addition, it considers proven not only these bribes, but also the fraudulent awarding of contracts - "eluding the procedure, ignoring any type of control and artificially dividing its object" - and payments for services not provided or "inflated invoices", in order to "pay commissions that in one case far exceeded 50,000 euros".
In addition, as the prosecutor had highlighted during the trial, the ruling recalls that in the case of one of the companies investigated, Infogelan, it went from never having worked for the City Council to invoicing more than one million euros in less than two years after the arrival of the PIL councilors convicted in this part.
Dimas and his "subordinates"
The ruling also does not give credence to the argument of Dimas Martín, who denied being "the boss" of the plot and to phrases such as those heard in the trial - such as "from today do not give him a penny, he has me up to my balls, not a penny" - he came to affirm that he only "advised" and "recommended" the PIL councilors and that if his words seem like orders it is "due to a defect of language".
Faced with this, the Court concludes that "there can be no doubt that Dimas, both by telephone, in personal meetings and by letter, gave instructions for certain matters of the Arrecife City Council to be resolved in the manner and form that he wished and ordered his three 'subordinates', councilors of the Arrecife City Council and treasurer of the PIL". "There was a distribution of roles to achieve a single purpose, the personal and party profit at the expense of public funds," he points out, thus considering proven the crime of illicit association for which they were also accused, along with others such as bribery, embezzlement, prevarication and fraud against the administration.
