"It was a display of impunity. The feast of predation." This is how the lawyer for the popular accusation, exercised by Urban Transparency and by the Association of Friends of the Cory's Shearwater, has defined what happened in Alegranza on September 8, 2015, when the Civil Guard identified 19 people who were allegedly participating in a meal with a stew of shearwaters, and who this Wednesday have sat on the bench for these facts.
"The attraction of eating shearwaters was that it is prohibited because it is a protected bird. And the attraction of doing it in Alegranza is that it is a protected space. It is the attraction of the infraction", added the lawyer, insisting on the "impunity" that she believes the accused felt. In fact, all the agents who have testified during the trial have confirmed that the shearwater hunts in Alegranza had been taking place for years, although the operation was not carried out until that day. "I had been with the operation since 2012. They informed me and told me if we could do something and this time we could", declared one of the agents of the maritime service of the Civil Guard.
"I had been behind this for three years, knowing that these things always happened on these dates", said another agent, who was in charge of driving the zodiac. "We had been after it for several years, we organized it and everything went as planned", he declared. In addition, when asked by the lawyers of the accused, he made it clear that it was not an operation directed towards "specific people". "I wasn't going after anyone by name or surname. I was going to do a service for something I knew happened every year", he added.
The information about "shearwater hunts" pointed to high positions
For her part, the Seprona sergeant in Lanzarote, Gloria Moreno, explained that shortly after joining this destination, specifically from March 2015, she began to be "bombarded" with that information, both from environmental associations and with complaints from citizens, who "demanded that they intervene". Thus, they set the action for September of that year, because it is the time when the shearwater chicks are born.
In the case of the sergeant, she has also stated that she did not know which people they were going to find, but she had "received information" about the positions and positions they held, due to the relevance of some of them. According to her statement, among the names that had been given to her of people who supposedly regularly participated in these shearwater hunts were "two civil guards, a retired national policeman, several drug traffickers, a mayor, a former president of the Government of the Canary Islands and some businessmen", although not all were confirmed in the operation.
In total, the identified were 19 people, who are the ones who have sat on the bench this Wednesday: Fernando González Berriel, Juan Carlos González Berriel, Juan Hernández Martín, Antonio Quintana López, Andrés González Curbelo, Victoriano Santana Cabrera, Juan Cuevas Alonso, Jaime Isaac Rodríguez Rodríguez, Orlando José Rivera Cabrera, Ibrahim Josué Cabrera Delgado and Adal González Cabrera, Agustiniano Hernández de León, Sotero Martín Villalba, Juan Miguel Medina Rodríguez, Cristóbal Miguel Morales, Juan José Rivera, Isidro Manuel Brito, Gabriel Eugenio Hernández and Juan Carlos Eugenio Hernández.
"This is just for a headline"
"He says they've been after them for many years. Why? Because they are well-known people on the island?", questioned one of the defense lawyers. "This is just for a headline. They are suffering the penalty of the dock. The alleged shearwaters of the island of Lanzarote", questioned another of the lawyers, referring to the fact that many of the accused are well-known people and to the "trial" that she believes has already been done in public opinion.
In addition, all the defenses have maintained in their conclusions that "there is not a single piece of evidence that proves" that their clients "hunted, cooked or ate" shearwaters in Alegranza. Regarding the analysis of the stew that was found in a pot, and that confirms that it was shearwater, at the end of the trial they have asked that this evidence be annulled, alleging that the chain of custody was broken.
Precisely about that "chain of custody" they have begun to ask questions to several witnesses and the judge has been interrupting them asking them not to continue there, given that the evidence had not been challenged during the instruction and neither has it been when raising the preliminary questions to the beginning of the trial. However, finally all the defenses have raised that challenge at the end of the hearing - which according to the prosecutor is "untimely" and does not allow it to be even taken into account - and have based it on the statement of the veterinarian who had that evidence in his custody.
"It has taken us by surprise"
This veterinarian, who has testified as an expert, has indicated during the trial that he is not a civil servant, although he collaborates with the Environment area in the recovery of injured fauna. For this reason, after introducing it in a bag, driving it to Lanzarote and keeping it for a while in the dependencies of the Civil Guard, the Seprona left the evidence under his custody, so that he would keep it in the freezer that he has in his veterinary clinic, according to the sergeant. Later, they took it to the Courts, where the seal that the bag had was removed so that the analysis could be carried out by a specialist.
"It has taken us by surprise", assured one of the lawyers, defending that until that moment they did not know where the veterinarian who was cited as an expert in the case worked. And this is how he defended the fact of presenting this challenge at the end of the trial, denying that it is "untimely" as both the Prosecutor's Office and the popular accusation maintain. However, during the interrogations, the defenses had also questioned other aspects related to that chain of custody that did appear in the summary, including the fact that a "non-regulatory" bag was used to take the stew evidence. "A chicken is a chicken and no matter how much it is put in a garbage bag, which in this case was clean, there is no problem", responded one of the agents.
In addition, the defenses have also reiterated questions about why the agents were not in uniform. "We were in civilian clothes to guarantee the success of the operation", responded Gloria Moreno, who specified that for the same reason they were in a zodiac without a distinctive of the Civil Guard.
"There is direct evidence"
For their part, both the prosecutor and the lawyer for the prosecution have defended that chain of custody, emphasizing that the bag maintained the seal when it arrived at the Court, and insisting that in any case an challenge cannot be admitted at the end of the trial, especially when the lawyers knew who the witnesses and experts who had been cited in the procedure were and all the data that appeared in the report of the Civil Guard.
"The facts are sufficiently proven and there is direct evidence", defended the prosecutor, stressing that "the statement of the agents, of the three, has been totally forceful to break the presumption of innocence" and to dictate a conviction for a crime against the environment in its modality of protection of fauna, for which he asks for fines of 6,000 euros and penalties of three years of disqualification for eleven of the accused, while the popular accusation is directed against the 19 people who have sat on the bench and raises the request for a fine for each one to 8,700 euros.
"The exculpatory statement of the accused is totally unsustainable", added the prosecutor, who considers that "it is not credible that 30 people managed to escape without being identified", as the defenses have maintained. And it is that although the agents have declared that there were about twenty people on the beach, the accused have assured that there were between 40 and 45 and that the rest "fled" or "hid" when the agents arrived, pointing out that those responsible for the events could have escaped. In this regard, the sergeant has indicated that they had been watching from a cliff for more than half an hour before intervening and that she only knew that two people could have fled. In addition, both she and the other two agents have insisted that it is an area of difficult access and that it is usually reached by sea, so it is not easy to make that ascent on foot, and even less so for more than 20 people to have escaped.
"Something is hidden to not recognize the truth"
Both the Prosecutor's Office and the lawyer for the prosecution have also emphasized the fact that the accused have refused to answer their questions and have only answered their own lawyers. "They have availed themselves of their right not to testify and they can do so, but that must also be valued", stressed the lawyer for the prosecution, pointing out that "something is hidden to not recognize the truth".
In addition, the prosecutor has stressed the aspects that "they have not clarified" in their statement. "Some have said that they arrived in a zodiac, but they have not explained who took the zodiac", she stressed. In addition, in the case of Fernando González Berriel, she has indicated that in his statement he said that they carried food on the boat and that they ate there what they had brought and "what they fished", but that "clashes with the evidence of the procedure", which shows that they were on the beach "in a tent, on a table, with a kitchen lit and with pans and other kitchen utensils".
As for where they spent the nights, since camping is also not allowed in Alegranza and most have recognized that they had been there for several days, they have all also said that they had mooring permission and that they slept on the boats, and the same have even said some of those who have claimed to have gone in a zodiac and spent several nights there.
