The Criminal Court Number 3 of Arrecife has already issued its ruling in the case of the seizure of the Montaña Roja desalination plant and has acquitted the former president of the Cabildo, Pedro San Ginés, and the other two defendants, although without "entering into the substance of the matter," as the magistrate points out in her ruling.
The reason for the acquittal is based on the judge's understanding that there was not "a legitimately constituted prosecution," which she states "obliges the issuance of an acquittal." Thus, throughout 19 pages, she does not assess the facts judged, and focuses only on analyzing the appearance of the former councilors of Podemos in the Cabildo (to whom she refers as councilors), concluding that the established procedures were not followed.
The magistrate thus upholds the argument of the defenses, which maintained that the former councilors Carlos Meca, Pablo Ramírez, and Plácida Martín appeared as a political group, but later lost that status. This same argument had already been rejected by the investigating judge, the Provincial Court, and the Public Prosecutor's Office itself, which endorsed the case going to trial with Meca and Ramírez as a popular prosecution, in their capacity as individuals. However, the ruling has now upheld this preliminary issue, thus invalidating the trial.
In addition, it imposes the payment of costs on the former councilors, stating that "recklessness or bad faith" has been "appreciated," because it maintains that they were "aware of their lack of procedural reason," by "losing the status of elected councilors (sic)."
The change of criteria of the Prosecutor's Office
In this trial, which was adjourned for sentencing on June 1, the former president of the Cabildo, Pedro San Ginés, the former secretary, Francisco Perdomo, and the former manager of the Insular Water Council, José Juan Hernández Duchemín, faced a request for 8 years of disqualification for malfeasance.
That was the penalty requested by the popular prosecution, while the Prosecutor's Office requested acquittal, after having changed the criteria it maintained throughout the investigation of this case. When it modified its position, already with the investigation completed, the plaintiff, Club Lanzarote, had just withdrawn from the case - after reaching an agreement with San Ginés - and the fourth investigated party, the lawyer Ignacio Calatayud, had been dismissed in an order issued by Judge Salvador Alba.
During the trial, the prosecution questioned that the Public Prosecutor's Office had not explained this "change of criteria," and recalled that the investigating judge was the one who ordered the opening of oral proceedings, after finding indications of a crime.
In the ruling, the magistrate includes in the proven facts the judicial rulings that declared the seizure illegal in the contentious-administrative channel, pointing out, among other issues, that this measure was not "proportionate," given that it was dictated as a precautionary measure in a file for three minor offenses and one less serious one. In addition, she recalls that the only report on record endorsing the seizure was prepared by the external lawyer Ignacio Calatayud, and was issued after San Ginés ordered that measure, without any prior opinion.
Afterwards, the plants were handed over to Canal Gestión, for whom Calatayud also worked, until the Justice annulled that precautionary measure, describing it as "burdensome" and "extreme" and emphasizing that it was not contemplated in the Law. This is how the magistrate herself recalls it in her ruling, although she then does not go on to analyze these facts, as she does not validate the popular prosecution.
