The first day of the trial for the seizure of the Montaña Roja desalination plant has highlighted a key contradiction between two of the defendants. The former president of the Cabildo, Pedro San Ginés, has insisted on assuring that he ordered that precautionary measure advised by the then secretary of the Corporation, Francisco Perdomo, the latter has flatly denied it.
"I was not asked for a report," Perdomo responded to questions from the prosecutor. "I had not studied the file nor did I know the inner workings," said the former secretary, who recalled that he stated the same during the investigation of this case.
However, San Ginés has continued to insist that he had a "verbal report" from the secretary to order this measure, which was later annulled by the Courts. In fact, what is being judged now in this case is whether the former president and the other two defendants incurred in crimes of malfeasance by carrying out "knowingly" this illegal act, without having a single prior written report to support it.
"I was aware of the extraordinary depth of what the decision entailed and I was advised at all times verbally. It is true that also by an external advisor, but fundamentally by who linked me, who was the secretary of the Cabildo," said Pedro San Ginés, who has refused to respond to the Public Prosecutor and has only answered his own lawyer.
In that statement, his lawyer began by emphasizing the lack of legal knowledge of his client. "What is your training in legal knowledge?" he asked. "Basic. I have a diploma in Business Studies," San Ginés replied. "And did you later take any law course?" the lawyer insisted, to which he replied no. However, although at several points in his statement the former president acknowledged that he was "aware that this was a case of extraordinary complexity", he did not ask for any written report before adopting the decision.
According to him, because the secretary told him verbally that he could execute the seizure, and even that he could do it without a court order and that he did not even need "a written report". However, these statements clash head-on with what the then secretary of the Cabildo has stated moments later.
Both in response to questions from the prosecutor and his own lawyer, Francisco Perdomo explained that Pedro San Ginés only asked him verbally about this issue on one occasion. "Did the president call him to his office or did he go to his?" his lawyer asked him. "No, he called me to his." "And did he come without knowing what he was going to ask him?" the lawyer insisted. "Yes," Perdomo replied again. "It was then an improvised advice," the lawyer concluded, to which the former secretary replied affirmatively. "It can be described like that, yes." And he had answered the same to the prosecutor before, when he asked him if he limited himself to inform with "general character", given that he assured that he was unaware of the details of this case and that he could only talk to him about others that he knew "of depopulation".
In fact, the former secretary has maintained that he was not even informed after that decision had been executed and has stated that he found out "through the press and colleagues that the Club Lanzarote plant had been seized." In this regard, his defense has emphasized that he was not obliged as secretary to make "warnings of legality". "It is true that before we had an obligation to warn, but that is no longer the case. The warnings of legality disappeared many years ago," Perdomo stressed in response to questions from his lawyer.
"Ten or twelve days later," according to Francisco Perdomo, the president brought him a report. "He tells me to read it. I tell him that it seems well-founded and legally reasoned to me. And he asked me if I would be willing to ratify the content with a diligence and I said yes and I did so," added the former secretary, who is accused precisely of having put his signature on that report, since the prosecution considers that with it they intended to "try to invest the seizure with legality" and the "prevaricating action" of the president.
That report, prepared after the seizure, was not written by any official of the Corporation but by the external lawyer Ignacio Calatayud, a personal friend of San Ginés. In addition, at that time Calatayud also worked for Canal Gestión, which is the company to which San Ginés gave the seized plants.
In his statement, Pedro San Ginés himself has acknowledged that he asked for that report after executing the seizure because he saw that there could be "problems". "A written report was requested later, precisely fearing what has happened: that I am here giving explanations to the Justice of why I made that decision. I asked them: 'Please, make me a written report because there are going to be problems'", he has admitted. In response to questions from his lawyer, he has assured that what he did was to ask "a posteriori" Ignacio Calatayud and the secretary to put in writing "all the approaches" that they had previously conveyed to him verbally. However, again there he has contradicted the former secretary.
"Did they ask you to put in writing what you had said verbally?" his lawyer asked Francisco Perdomo, after having heard the statement of the former president. "No," the former secretary denied again. Thus, he has insisted that neither before nor after the seizure he issued a report and that he limited himself to put his signature on the one prepared by Ignacio Calatayud because the president asked him and it seemed to him that it was "founded".
As for his previous intervention, in addition to the "brief" and "improvised" conversation that he has stated that he had in the president's office, he has indicated that he also participated in a meeting with the promoters of the Montaña Roja Partial Plan, that is, with the owners of the seized plant. "It was to reach an amicable agreement that was not reached. And I did not intervene. I was only present," he has specified, insisting that it was "a few months before" and "only for the purpose of trying to reach a possible solution".
At that time, the Consortium maintained that Club did not have authorization to sell water, as it had been doing for almost three decades, given that that Partial Plan was still not received by the administration. Finally, in September 2014 San Ginés ordered to open a sanctioning file, which only proposed a fine of 7,800 euros for three minor offenses and one less serious. However, without having any legal report in writing, that same day and in the same resolution he ordered to seize the plants as a precautionary measure and hand them over to Canal Gestión, to whom he had awarded less than two years before the management of water in Lanzarote.
