"This surpasses the very concept of corruption. Everything had to pass through the Tahíche filter, through the prison gaze of an inmate. There is no article in the Penal Code that includes this level of crime, this submission." This is how prosecutor Javier Ródenas summarized the "corrupt black history that devastated the Arrecife City Council between 2007 and 2009", when presenting his final conclusions in the trial of piece 12 of the Unión case, which began almost two months ago and will end this week, pending only that all the defenses also present their final plea.
During this day, held at the Palace of Justice of Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, it was the turn of the Public Prosecutor's Office, the private and popular accusations and two of the defense lawyers: Juan Francisco Rosa's and one of the accused who have confessed to the facts, the businessman Jesús Manuel Martín Brito, owner of Infogelan, who has acknowledged that he paid 100,000 euros in bribes in exchange for receiving more than one million euros from the Arrecife City Council, in some cases for work that had not even been carried out.
"Arrecife was held hostage by a casino prosperity. Only the PIL bank, Dimas Martín's bank, won", the prosecutor has stated, who has asked the Sixth Section of the Provincial Court to go beyond the specific crimes that have been proven -and that have been recognized by six of the twelve defendants- and that their sentence reflects that "there was a corrupt criminal plot to enrich themselves." "The intention of the Public Prosecutor's Office is not only to prove a punishable action. The aspiration is much greater. You have the power to ensure that Justice is done," Ródenas has demanded, insisting on the need for a sentence to include that "immutable truth" that a "an inmate from Tahíche coordinated and directed" the administration and had the "submission" of the Arrecife City Council. "It is not enough to condemn. If you do not transmute this into an immutable legal truth, it will have been for nothing," he warned.
"There is no greater prisoner than one who follows orders from an inmate"
During almost two and a half hours in which he hardly used papers or a computer, the prosecutor recalled the statements, telephone conversations, documents and letters that support the accusation and that reflect how the historical leader of the PIL gave instructions to the councilors of his party on who they should pay, which invoices they should withhold or how they should block certain awards, such as the Neighborhood Plan, with "conduct that bordered on extortion".
"There is no greater prisoner than one who has to follow the orders of an inmate daily", the prosecutor emphasized, pointing out that Dimas was in prison but that the councilors were also "deprived of their freedom", since they acted under "due obedience" towards the one "everyone pointed to as the boss", and faced constant "pressure". And to support this, he recalled the different calls that have been heard during the trial and the letters that Dimas Martín sent to the then Councilor for Finance, José Miguel Rodríguez, who was one of the defendants who confessed during the investigation but who died before the trial arrived.
"The councilors were Dimas' subordinates", Ródenas insisted, explaining that all the requirements established by the Penal Code for the existence of an illegal association are met, and that they involve the existence of a permanent and stable structure, a clear distribution of functions, "an obedience that borders on submission" and an objective of illicit enrichment, obtaining money both for the party and for the personal benefit of the accused. In addition, he stressed that the existence of this illegal association "has been recognized by everyone except the boss", Dimas Martín, in reference to both the confessions of José Miguel Rodríguez and another former councilor who is in the dock, Ubaldo Becerra.
Refutes the "childish" "primary school" version of Antonio Machín
The other former PIL councilor accused in the case, Antonio Machín, has not acknowledged the facts, and the prosecutor has focused a good part of his intervention on him. In fact, during the trial he increased the sentence he is requesting for him, from 14 and a half years to 16 years and five months, considering that it has been proven that the crime of bribery for which he is accused was a continuous crime.
In his conclusions, Ródenas has insisted that Antonio Machín also benefited from the 100,000 euros that the owner of Infogelan paid in illegal commissions to the PIL councilors, in exchange for awards and payments authorized from the Parks and Gardens Department held by this councilor. In this regard, he recalled that José Miguel Rodríguez stated this during the investigation phase, and also that both councilors were even subjected to a confrontation in the Courts. In addition, he has referred to the telephone conversations that were intercepted by the UCO, in which Antonio Machín speaks with Rodríguez about this businessman, whom he referred to as "the goat guy".
In his statement in the Courts, the councilor first denied that he used that nickname, until he was made to listen to the conversation. Then, according to Ródenas, Machín used "first grade" arguments, a "childish version", to affirm that what they were talking about was buying "meat and wine for a barbecue".
"The goat guy is a good payer", the prosecutor recalled that was heard in those conversations between Machín and Rodríguez. "Has the goat guy given a break"?, "No, not even a sign", they said in another. In that same call, Antonio Machín, who during the trial has denied having anything to do with the award or with the supervision of the works, stated that one of the works that this company was carrying out had "less than four meters" left. "I told you to stop everything", José Miguel Rodríguez then replied.
To these conversations, which the prosecutor considers sufficient proof that Machín knew and participated in the demand for illegal commissions from this businessman, Ródenas has also added others. "I have sent the goat guy to fix some roofs", Antonio Machín said in one of them, despite denying having participated in the award of works.
Awards "de facto"
Precisely at this point the prosecutor has also emphasized, since Machín bases his defense on the fact that he was not delegated by the mayor the capacity to contract and that his signature does not appear awarding works. There, Ródenas has once again addressed the magistrates of the Chamber, asking them to go beyond the "formal fact" and delve into "how it was executed". "They have to penetrate, because a characteristic of prevarication is the absolute lack of competence", he stressed, explaining that what they did was "resort to a de facto route", "dispense with any semblance of procedure" and award the work without any type of procedure. "If the rule is not respected, of course you can prevaricate", he stressed.
In the case of Machín, he has stated that he intervened in 64 Infogelan files, some with "even verbal" orders, worth more than one million euros. "He says that his signature does not appear, but it is in the spending proposal and in the invoices", Ródenas has detailed, explaining that other procedures were omitted, including that there was not even a budget from the City Council and that then the invoices were signed by administrative assistants who signed as technicians without being so, as confirmed by the signatories themselves when testifying as witnesses in the trial.
"They didn't care about signing an invoice for a million euros or a thousand euros, because they didn't control anything", he has questioned, recalling that precisely those signatures imply conformity that the work has been executed, when in reality nobody checked it. In their statement, those assistants also ratified that they stamped their signatures on the orders of Antonio Machín, who during the trial refused to answer the prosecutor's questions and only answered his own lawyer.
In addition, the prosecutor has also stressed that Machín "could have refused at any time" and these crimes of embezzlement would not have occurred, "regardless of whether he had control of public funds", he stressed, pointing out to the Court the importance of taking "special care in the sentence". And it is that in the first ruling of Unión, for the payments to Rodríguez Batllori, the Supreme Court later reduced the sentences eliminating the crime of embezzlement in some defendants due to an "omission" in the wording of the sentence, precisely related to not having mentioned that they had control over public funds. In this regard, the thesis of the Public Prosecutor's Office is that apart from the auditor, Carlos Sáenz -also accused in the case and who has acknowledged the crimes-, or the then Councilor for Finance, the participation of the rest of the accused was also decisive for the crime of embezzlement to be perpetrated.
The "crude and rude" nature of a file even made the expert laugh
When referring to the 64 Infogelan files, Javier Ródenas has highlighted that only one of them had an award decree, "which is also blatantly arbitrary", and in which the then Head of Contracting of Arrecife, Elena Martín, intervened. Regarding that file, he has recalled that the amount was broken down to divide the contract, that the businessman who made the specifications was the same one who was awarded the contract and that even in the initial internal demand of the City Council the name of Infogelan already appeared "crossed out at the top". In this regard, the prosecutor has recalled that the expert who testified in the trial could not avoid laughing when seeing that document. "It's that it's rude, it's crude", he emphasized.
Regarding Elena Martín -for whom he has already withdrawn the accusation for revealing privileged information and fraud but maintains that of prevarication-, the representative of the Public Prosecutor's Office has pointed out that "she cannot escape her condition as Head of Contracting". And it is that although her defense has been based on the fact that in the City Council there was another independent Purchasing department, Ródenas maintains that her job was to motivate the decisions, give instructions that contracts could not be divided and give a legal response to what the politicians raised. "She had to have acted to prevent that contracting de facto", he maintained, again stressing that there was not even a budget from the City Council, only from the businessman.
In addition, he has highlighted that "the scarcity of defense witnesses has been striking", since they renounced practically all those they had requested, keeping only two. "Especially if it is contrasted with the combat they have maintained in terms of defense", he added in reference to all the attacks on the investigation, trying to annul evidence, orders and the actions as a whole.
Lemes and Reina Fabre
Regarding the other two accused businessmen who have not confessed, Samuel Lemes and Manuel Gregorio Reina Fabre, the prosecutor also considers their participation proven. Regarding Lemes, he has recalled that he referred to Dimas as "the boss" in a conversation with José Miguel Rodríguez. "He is very talkative and said that he calls everyone boss, but the question is that when he said the boss, his interlocutor knew that he was referring to Dimas", the prosecutor has added.
In addition, although Samuel Lemes alleged that in reality he was not the administrator of the company, but his father, Rodénas has recalled that he was "all day in the Arrecife City Council" and that in the case there are "more than 27 calls" that he exchanged with the then Councilor for Finance citing him in the Consistory to talk about awards and payments of invoices. "We can change 'like Pedro at home' to 'he was in the City Council like Samuel at home", he has joked.
Regarding Reina Fabre, he has recalled that both after his arrest and three years later, when he returned to testify when the secrecy of the summary was lifted, this businessman acknowledged having delivered bribes worth 4,000 euros in exchange for the payment of invoices from the City Council. However, in the trial he has denied the facts, stating that they asked him for money but that he did not deliver it, and assuring that if he stated the opposite it was because he was "induced", because he had a previous conviction for drug trafficking and feared going to prison. "He says that he had an incident with hashish and that if he didn't say what they asked him he was going to go to prison. It would make more logical sense to think that he had possibilities of going to prison if he recognizes that he has committed a crime, not the opposite", the prosecutor has highlighted, who considers that more than "induced" it seems that he was "abducted".
In addition, he has recalled that both José Miguel Rodríguez and Ubaldo Becerra confessed to having received that bribe from Reina Fabre. "It was his way of acting and when the businessman got tired of paying, they never hired him again", he has stated, urging the Court to assess which statement has more "credibility", whether the two he gave in the investigation phase or the one he has made during the trial, which clashes with that of another of the accused and with that of the deceased José Miguel Rodríguez.
In the same way, he has also insisted on the crime of embezzlement and has recalled the statement during the trial of an expert, in reference to a work for which Reina Fabre invoiced the City Council twice. According to the businessman, they were two different interventions to fix the same fountain, but the expert stated that even if that were the case, when the second work was done the first would be under warranty, so the Consistory would not have had to pay again.
Thus, the prosecutor has again referred to the "totally blatant and arbitrary verification of that supposedly performed work", as happened with other invoices investigated in this case. In fact, he has recalled that one of the confessed defendants, Martín Brito, has already returned 50,000 euros, after acknowledging that in one of the cases he charged up to four times for the same service.
"The testimony of the people who participated in the corrupt plot"
Regarding the accused who have confessed and who have incriminated the rest, the prosecutor has anticipated the allegations of the defenses, who "will say that this has been rewarded with reductions in the sentence". To this, he has responded that there is jurisprudence that supports these conformity agreements and has stressed that "the main source of evidence when a corrupt plot is dismantled is the testimony of the people who participated in the corrupt plot".
In addition, he has emphasized that these confessions are supported by the rest of the evidence, since what José Miguel Rodríguez and Ubaldo Becerra stated corresponds to what was heard in the telephone conversations, with what could be read in the letters sent by Dimas and even with the agendas intercepted by the UCO, "the corrupt diary" that reflects the meetings that the leader of the PIL held when he was out of prison with the third degree prison regime. "It confirms the objective veracity of the confessions", Ródenas has pointed out.
The prosecutor has also referred to Antonio Machín's statement about his alleged conversation with a prisoner, who according to him had also shared a cell before with José Miguel Rodríguez, and who told him that the night before confessing and giving other names, Rodríguez was "hesitant" and had a list that he had given him telling him that if he did not incriminate them "he was not going to see his children". In this regard, Ródenas has rejected this "insidious suggestion" and has asked that it be answered in the sentence.
"I do not know a more meticulous defense than that of Antonio Machín's lawyer", the prosecutor has begun pointing out in reference to Juana Fernandéz de las Heras, daughter of Felipe Fernández Camero, to refute what he has defined as "the thesis of the casual prisoner". "She has presented about 70 appeals. She protests everything. Do you believe that she would not have tried to bring that prisoner here?", the prosecutor has questioned.
Faced with this, Ródenas wanted to highlight the work carried out during the investigation. In fact, he began his conclusions with a "thank you to the body of lawyers of the administration of Justice", formerly known as judicial secretaries, and in particular to the one who was a lawyer in Court Number 5 when the investigation of the Unión case was closed, Sonia Herrera Mayoral, and to the lawyer of the Sixth Section of the Provincial Court. "The effort to record everything page by page has an invaluable merit. That effort has been used by the Public Prosecutor's Office, because it had an interest in the evidence of conviction. That interest that others who later denounce defenselessness did not have", he pointed out in reference to all the preliminary issues raised by the defenses, and especially by that of Antonio Machín, to request the nullity of the actions alleging alleged violations of rights that have already been dismissed in other pieces of Unión that have a final judgment.
