The Second Section of the Provincial Court of Las Palmas has refused to reduce the sentence from ten years and three months in prison to the former secretary of Arrecife, Felipe Fernández Camero. To this end, the Court argues that Camero "was part of the largest corruption plot that the Canary archipelago has suffered" and that he continued his "criminal activity to obtain greater profits".
The defense of Fernández Camero tried to get a reduction of the sentence for having deposited 8,591.94 euros in the Court's deposit before the oral trial was held. The lawyer of the former mayor of Arrecife, Isabel Déniz (2000-2007), tried to do the same, who paid 45,000 euros as liability before the beginning of the hearing. The Court has rejected reducing the sentence in both cases.
The Court has clarified to the defense of the former secretary of the capital of Lanzarote, Felipe Fernández Camero, that the deposit of 8,591.94 euros in the Court's deposit is not a reason to reduce the sentence handed down five months ago. This is revealed by the clarifying order of the Jable case ruling, which La Voz has accessed and which was issued last May.
The former secretary of the Arrecife City Council was convicted of the crimes of fraud against the administration, bribery, disclosure of secrets with serious damage to the public cause and infidelity in the custody of documents for his involvement in the tenders to the company Urbaser for the garbage contract of the City Council of the capital during the mandate of Déniz and the awarding to Fomento Construcción y Contratas (FCC) of the construction of the Argana Alta pavilion.
Last January, the Provincial Court of Las Palmas sentenced Déniz to ten years in prison and Fernández Camero to another ten years in prison for their involvement in the Jable case. Operation Jable was named by the Central Operative Unit (UCO) and named as the most complex judicial case in the Canary Islands due to its extension and volume.
The Provincial Court states that "the payment" of both amounts "lacks mitigating grounds" because it represents "a very partial return" of the amount finally imposed by the Court. Camero was also sentenced to pay a fine of 32,837.76 euros and the confiscation of another 14,000 euros that had been delivered by senior officials of Urbaser to pay for a leisure trip to Kenya with his wife, in the company of Isabel Déniz and her husband.
In addition, the Court points out that in the case of Camero, the return of this amount is "not consistent" to replace "as far as possible the damages derived from the action". Thus, it points out that it "only responds to the aspiration" of obtaining "a lesser criminal reproach".
The order clarifying the ruling shows that when the reparation is not complete "it is not enough that the payment is relevant and sufficiently significant", but it must be stated that the subject cannot "attend to it in greater proportion and rebalance the suffering borne by the injured party".
So, if the damage is satisfied partially even if there is "a greater compensation", the mitigating factor could be used in a "spurious" way and that the penalty would be reduced without "the active subject really admitting the infraction committed and showing the regeneration of his conduct".
In this line, the Court emphasizes that both Isabel Déniz and Felipe Fernández Camero "maintain important incomes" after the commission of the crimes and concludes that the amounts paid do not correspond to "the joint payment" of the accused.
