The trial of one of the parts of the Montecarlo case will begin at the end of this month, and with it a new stage of court hearings for corruption cases on the island will begin. In addition to the twelve defendants in this part of Montecarlo, in the coming months the former president of the Cabildo, Pedro San Ginés, the lawyer Felipe Fernández Camero and, among others, the former mayor of Yaiza, José Francisco Reyes, who will face two other trials, will be in the dock in different cases.
The first hearing, which La Voz reported last November, has just been confirmed by the Superior Court of Justice of the Canary Islands, which maintains the scheduled start date of April 25.
This trial is the third of the Montecarlo case and the first to put the former mayor of Arrecife José Montelongo in the dock, for alleged crimes of embezzlement and prevarication in payments to the companies Inelcon and Señalon.
In total, it is scheduled to take place in 14 sessions until mid-June, before the Sixth Section of the Provincial Court, and the first three will be on April 25, 26 and 27.
In addition to Montelongo, the defendants include the former auditor of Arrecife, Carlos Sáenz, who was already convicted in both the Unión case and two other parts of Montecarlo, in which he confessed to the crimes he was accused of, as did the rest of the defendants.
Along with the former mayor, the former auditor and the businessman, the former councilors Isabel Martinón, Víctor Sanginés, Eduardo Laso and Alberto Juan Morales, and five City Council workers will be in the dock: Miguel Ángel Leal, José Nieves Caraballo, Penélope Tabares García, José Antonio Cabrera Moreno and Isidro Hernández Fuentes.
The Prosecutor's Office is asking for sentences of between 4 and 6 years in prison for them, in addition to the return of the embezzled money, in the amount that each one allegedly contributed to defraud.
San Ginés returns to the dock
The next to sit in the dock will be the former president of the Cabildo, Pedro San Ginés, for a crime of prevarication, for ordering the illegal seizure of the Montaña Roja desalination plant to hand it over to Canal Gestión.
This trial began a year and a half ago, but San Ginés' defense managed to suspend it when a session had already been held, alleging in an untimely manner that the judge was not competent to judge him.
Afterwards, the Provincial Court overturned his arguments and ordered that the same magistrate, from the Criminal Court Number 3 of Arrecife, continue to hold the hearing, which will now have to start the hearing from the beginning.
After several changes, the last hearing was set for May 16, 17, 24 and 25, so it will coincide in time with the Montecarlo trial, which will last for almost three months. Along with San Ginés, the former secretary of the Cabildo, Francisco Perdomo, and the former manager of the Insular Water Council, José Juan Hernández Duchemí, will be tried in this case.
First corruption trial for Camero
On June 13, if there are no changes, it will be the turn of the lawyer Felipe Fernández Camero, who must answer for the alleged embezzlement of almost one million euros that he charged from the Yaiza Town Hall.
Camero is also accused of embezzlement and bribery in a piece of the Unión case, which is still without a trial date, along with the former mayor of Arrecife María Isabel Déniz. In addition, he is now being investigated in the new case opened against the former president of the Cabildo, Pedro San Ginés. This procedure investigates the payments received by Camero's son-in-law, the lawyer Ignacio Calatayud, for the creditors' meeting of Inalsa, which also amounted to almost one million euros.
While authorizing these payments, San Ginés lived in a house owned by Camero, first on a rental basis, according to himself, until he later acquired it, on a date he did not want to specify. This purchase operation is also being investigated, in case it could hide an alleged crime of bribery related to the payments to Calatayud. Neither in San Ginés' declaration of assets in the Cabildo nor in the Land Registry does it appear that the house is his.
As for the trial that Camero will face in June, it arises from a separate piece of the Yate case and is scheduled to last for 9 days, between the 13th and the 23rd. Along with him, the former mayor of Yaiza, José Francisco Reyes, the former secretary, Vicente Bartolomé Fuentes, and another official of the Consistory, Antonio Fernández Martín, will be in the dock.
The Prosecutor's Office is asking for 6 years in prison and 10 years of disqualification for Felipe Fernández Camero for the "arbitrary plundering of public funds" of the Yaiza Town Hall, since it maintains that he charged nearly one million euros from the Consistory outside the law, without any legal contracting or services provided to justify these payments.
The Costa Roja license is judged 16 years later
In addition, José Francisco Reyes will have a second trial this year, for the granting of the Costa Roja license, to build more than 1,000 homes, 228 commercial premises and 2,559 parking spaces at the entrance to Playa Blanca. This case is one of the most delayed, as it began 16 years ago.
Along with Reyes, the former secretary of the Town Hall, Vicente Bartolomé Fuentes, and the former head of the Technical Office, Antonio Lorenzo, are also accused again, accused of crimes of urban planning prevarication. Currently, none of the three hold these positions, from which they were removed by other corruption convictions.
In its indictment, the Prosecutor's Office underlines the "extraordinary and undue delays" that occurred during the investigation of this case, and applies them as a mitigating factor to reduce the sentence. Thus, it only asks for a sentence of three years and three months of disqualification for each one - which currently would have no practical effects - as well as a fine of 3,960 euros.
For its part, the private prosecution raises the petition to one year and three months in prison and seven years of disqualification, considering that it was not a single crime, but a continuous crime. And it is that a year after granting the building permit, the defendants also approved the execution project, despite the repeated warnings they had already received from the Cabildo about its illegality.
