“The more they try to avoid holding this trial, the more guilty they seem to be. Someone innocent wants it to be held as soon as possible.” That is what the lawyer for the private prosecution, Nora Ferrer, warned during the first day of the trial for the seizure of the Montaña Roja desalination plant. And it is that after all the previous failed attempts, Pedro San Ginés' defense has once again requested that it be suspended as soon as the hearing began.
To do this, he has again alleged that there is no legitimately appointed accusation, which has already been answered in several orders from different sections of the Provincial Court, the last one this week.
In addition, he has once again clung to the same argument with which he managed to suspend the trial a year ago, alleging that the head of the Criminal Court Number 3 of Arrecife is not competent to judge the case. He brandished this when a day of the first trial had already been held, and San Ginés' lawyer even threatened the judge with reporting her for prevarication if she continued.
He finally managed to suspend the hearing, but later the Court overturned his arguments and ordered it to continue with the same magistrate. And it also rejected the recusal that Pedro San Ginés later filed against the judge, which resulted in a fine of 1,000 euros for bad faith. Curiously, San Ginés' lawyer assured this Tuesday that he did not actually file that recusal and that his writing was “misinterpreted.”
“Let's see if this time he is capable of explaining this part,” the lawyer stated after that preamble, before repeating as preliminary issues everything that had already been previously dismissed in other instances.
“They have filed all the appeals that exist. For protection, complaint and they have even gone to the Constitutional Court. But this lawyer is here because there are a multitude of resolutions that allow it”, the lawyer for the prosecution underlined, insisting that these resolutions “are firm and tell them that they are wrong.”
“It is possible that what happens to the defenses is that they confuse and believe that there is nullity when they are not given the reason,” she has ironically stated, in reference to the incidents of nullity that they have presented. The last one led to the suspension of the first day of the trial that was scheduled for last week, but finally the Court resolved it - and rejected it - in time for it to begin this Tuesday.
“They don't care what the resolutions of the courts of justice say,” Ferrer reproached, after hearing the same allegations from the defenses again.
The prosecutor defends that the trial be held
For her part, the prosecutor has also requested that the trial continue. And although she finally did not file charges, the representative of the Public Ministry did attend and interrogate defendants and witnesses.
In addition, when opposing the preliminary issues of San Ginés' defense, she underlined that the private prosecution, which Club Lanzarote exercised as harmed by the seizure, “has not requested the dismissal” and “has not expressly renounced” what may correspond to them.
“He only presented a writing in which he stated that his interest had waned,” the prosecutor recalled. A writing that Club registered after signing an agreement with Pedro San Ginés, when he was still president, and years after filing this complaint against him.
After listening to all parties, the magistrate has defended her competence to hold the hearing, thus rejecting that preliminary issue. “It is dismissed again,” she underlined, recalling that “it was already resolved by the Court.” Regarding the rest, she has indicated that it will be resolved in the sentence.
Next, before beginning the trial, she agreed to the other request from San Ginés' defense, which had requested a recess if its request to suspend the hearing was not heeded. “I ask for a recess to discuss with our client what our strategy will be”, he requested, in the middle of a trial that he has been waiting for for years.
The judge authorized it and gave 10 minutes, in which San Ginés and his lawyer - along with two other lawyers who were also accompanying him - were in the hallway, sometimes together and sometimes biding their time and talking with other people who were there.
Afterwards, the hearing finally began, first with the statement of the defendants and then with the first witnesses who had already been summoned for this Tuesday. Thus, what was planned to be done in two days has been joined in one day, due to the suspension of the hearing last week due to that request for nullity from San Ginés, which was rejected again this Monday.
