The Second Section of the Provincial Court of Las Palmas has suspended the first and second sessions of the Jable trial scheduled for this Monday and Tuesday.
The case, the most complex in the Canary Islands in terms of volume and extension, investigates the alleged irregularities in the tenders for the garbage and cleaning contract of the Arrecife City Council during the term of Mayor Isabel Déniz (2001-2007) to the company Urbaser and the hiring of Fomento de Construcciones y Contratas (FCC) for the construction of the Argana Alta pavilion.
The state of health of the former mayor of Arrecife, Isabel Déniz, was the reason why the magistrates accepted, at the request of the majority of the defenses, to suspend the hearing pending the results of the former politician, who did not appear at the trial. In this sense, she is awaiting assistance by a forensic doctor, to know the severity of her ailments. If she does not require further attention and can rejoin, the process would resume on Monday, April 24.
Isabel Déniz faces the alleged authorship of the continued crimes of prevarication and bribery, as well as illicit association, for which she could reach 13 years in prison.
As of June 13, 2012, Isabel Déniz had assets of 400,881.64 euros, "lacking justification", according to the Prosecutor's Office's indictment. In the first decade of the 2000s, she had made several cash deposits to herself that exceeded 112,000 euros. She had also bought a bungalow in Famara with her husband, the payment of which she could not justify, the Public Prosecutor's Office revealed at the time. In addition, the couple also owned a house in La Graciosa, eight vehicles and a boat.
The Public Prosecutor's Office also highlighted the number of trips made by Isabel Déniz. Among them, a trip to Cuba in 2004 for an amount of 7,557.39 euros, "without having any debts related to this expense in her accounts".
Along with Isabel Déniz, the historical leader of the Party of Independents of Lanzarote (PIL), Dimas Martín, is being investigated, with whom she would have created a plot to obtain economic benefit. Both are accused of "reaching agreements with companies that intend to be awarded contracts for works or services with the Arrecife City Council, demanding the collection of illicit commissions in cash and through various gifts or presents in exchange for being favored in the award of said contracts, to the detriment of others".
Déniz and Martin would have the collaboration of two officials: the former head of the Technical Office of the Arrecife City Council, Juan Rafael Arrocha, and the former secretary of the corporation, Felipe Fernández Camero. Camero was also a member of the contracting table along with Déniz.
The Prosecutor's Office asks to "purge" the indictment
Despite the suspension of the session, the Prosecutor's Office has spoken about the delay of the trial and has asked the judge to "purge" the indictment to adapt it to the "temporal lapse" that it has suffered since the presentation of this document, which dates from 2016, seven years have passed. To this must be added that "they have been waiting since April 2010" for this trial to start. "The delay has already lasted 13 years", the Public Prosecutor's Office wanted to record after learning of the suspension of the session.
Understanding that the penalties have expired, during his intervention, the Prosecutor's Office has withdrawn the accusation against five of the 16 defendants in the Jable case: Enrique Astorga, Manuel Jesús Isidro Spínola, Julio Pedro Romero, Daniel Hernández Caraballo and Rafael Antonio Corujo.
Of the five people who are freed from this prosecution, the only one who faced prison was Enrique Astorga, a director of the company Fomento de Construcciones y Contratas (FCC), accused of a crime of bribery. For him, the Public Prosecutor's Office requested a sentence of four years in prison, disqualification and a fine of 111,744.08 euros, twice the amount of the alleged gifts.
Astorga and another FCC director, Enrique José Hernández Martín, obtained the contract for the construction of the Argana Alta municipal pavilion. According to the Public Prosecutor's Office, in exchange for this award, Isabel Déniz "was given a trip to Morocco" with seven members of her family for eight nights, on December 30, 2005. Then, these expenses were authorized in the form of a promissory note of 17,340.01 euros by FCC. Astorga and Martín signed "with knowledge that it was a consideration for the favors received", the Prosecutor's Office stressed in its writing.
According to the Public Prosecutor's Office, the pavilion contract was awarded to FCC not for "offering the best conditions for the municipal corporation" but for the "payment of the requested gifts".
Along with Astorga, the Prosecutor's Office withdrew the accusation against Julio Pedro Romero, Manuel Jesús Isidro Spínola, Daniel Hernández Caraballo and Rafael Antonio Corujo, who remained singled out for their relationship with the companies Gamma Install SL and Proyectos Gamma SL. According to the indictment, these companies "had as clients numerous companies that, at some point, had to obtain reports from the Technical Office of the Arrecife City Council, directed by the accused Juan Rafael Arrocha, also a partner of Gamma, or from the Department of Classified Activities of the Cabildo de Lanzarote, then with the also accused Manuel Isidro Spínola as head.
The rest of the accused
The trial will also judge former directors of Urbaser (formerly Tecmed SA), who would have obtained "the fraudulent award of a garbage and waste collection contract" by the Arrecife City Council. Two former senior officials of the company have acknowledged their involvement, have stated that they will collaborate with Justice and have paid 220,000 euros as a fine. In addition, the representatives of FCC, the former socialist secretary Miguel Ángel Leal, as well as the partners of Déniz and Martín as participants for lucrative purposes.