The Prosecutor's Office, which had decided not to file charges in the criminal case for the seizure of the Montaña Roja desalination plant, has nevertheless requested that the president of the Cabildo, Pedro San Ginés, the secretary, Francisco Perdomo, and the former manager of the Island Water Council, José Juan Hernández Duchemín, be brought to trial, based on the qualification document presented by the popular accusation, exercised by the Podemos group in the Cabildo, which in turn coincides with the criteria of the investigating judge.
To this end, after receiving a new deadline from the magistrate, the prosecutor Celia María Asensio has finally presented her own indictment, although asking for the acquittal of the investigated. Thus, despite maintaining its position, it supports the holding of the oral hearing, thus coinciding with the criteria of the investigating judge, who had already ordered the opening of the trial in accordance with the request of the popular accusation.
Both the defense of San Ginés and the rest of the accused had tried to avoid the trial by clinging to the so-called "Botín doctrine", which prevented the well-known banker from going to trial when the Prosecutor's Office withdrew from the proceedings against him and only the popular accusation remained. However, other more recent precedents, such as the one in the Noos case with Infanta Cristina and later with the Bankia case, support the continuation of the proceedings when collective interests are at stake, which are those represented by the popular accusation. "The popular action takes on special relevance in corruption crimes, in those criminal modalities that, due to their reiteration and the damage they generate in the social fabric, are of particular concern to citizens," the judge stated in the order in which he ordered the opening of oral trial against San Ginés.
"A whim of San Ginés" to "benefit Canal Gestión"
Thus, San Ginés, Perdomo and Duchemín must sit on the bench with a request for 12 years of disqualification for each one for an alleged crime of prevarication, for having seized private plants of Club Lanzarote, without a court order and without a single written report to support it, to hand them over to Canal Gestión.
"The resolution adopted lacks any legal logic, since it is inappropriate and absolutely disproportionate to seize a private installation as a precautionary measure subject to a sanctioning procedure that, at most, could impose a fine of 7,200 euros," stated the writing of the popular accusation, which considers that the seizure was carried out because it was "the only way that responded to the whim of Mr. San Ginés and his desire to benefit Canal Gestión Lanzarote", which thanks to this obtained "fat profits".
Although this accusation was filed by the Podemos group in the Cabildo, for legal purposes those who are present in the case are the councilors in a personal capacity. Thus, despite the changes that will occur in that political group after the next elections, the spokesman Carlos Meca has made it clear that they will continue to exercise the accusation.
Two events that coincided with the change of criteria of the Prosecutor's Office
In his writing, dated December 18 but notified to the parties this Wednesday, the prosecutor includes the same account of the facts that had led him to request the indictment of the three accused and to maintain that there were sufficient indications to bring them to trial. It was last May, and after having opposed the appeals that they presented against the order that put an end to the instruction, when he changed his mind and went on to request "the provisional dismissal of the proceedings as long as there were no new elements of judgment".
In that writing, the Prosecutor's Office linked its decision to the order that had just been issued by the controversial judge Salvador Alba -today removed from the Provincial Court and awaiting trial for serious crimes in the exercise of his office-, which agreed to the dismissal of one of the investigated, the lawyer Ignacio Calatayud, Thus, the prosecutor pointed out that "given the impossibility of formulating an accusation" against this lawyer, whom the rest of the accused pointed out as the "ideologue" of the seizure, he could not do so against the others either.
In addition, the change of criteria also coincided with the withdrawal of the procedure of Club Lanzarote, which was the one who denounced the cause but who later decided to abandon it, after negotiating an agreement with San Ginés by which it currently continues to exploit those plants.
He withdrew, but endorsing the following steps of the judge
However, despite having requested the dismissal, the Public Prosecutor's Office continued to defend the steps taken by the judge to continue the proceedings and now has even requested that the case go to trial, despite the fact that it will request the acquittal. In this regard, in his new writing he points out that "the facts narrated do not constitute a criminal offense" nor is there "criminal responsibility", although on this occasion he does not explain what has led him to adopt this new criterion.
In that account of the facts, the Prosecutor's Office recalls that the only legal report that San Ginés had to justify his action was actually prepared when he had already executed the seizure. And whoever prepared it was his friend Ignacio Calatayud, who is not a worker of the Cabildo but who has been repeatedly hired by the president as an external advisor. Later, that report was also signed by the secretary of the Corporation, in what the investigating judge considers could have been an act of prevarication to try to cover the measure that the president had already adopted.
In addition, the Prosecutor's Office also recalls the judgments issued in the contentious-administrative channel, which have already concluded that a precautionary measure "as serious and extreme" as the seizure was not justified, especially when the owner of the plants had only been opened file for three minor infractions and one less serious. In fact, that is what led to the annulment of the seizure and the return to Club Lanzarote of the plants that had been left in the hands of Canal Gestión, which during that period significantly increased its turnover.
Despite this, the prosecutor has decided to request the acquittal now, although his writing makes it clear that he will be present at the trial. Even, in his writing he asks to interrogate the accused during the hearing, as well as different witnesses that he asks to be summoned.