The popular accusation has provided new evidence during the first day of the Stratvs case trial, with which it intends to shore up one of the accusations against businessman Juan Francisco Rosa, for the polluting spills from the winery. The new document, which has already been admitted by the Chamber of the Sixth Section of the Provincial Court, is the study carried out by the team of engineer Carlos Soler on the cisterns and springs that surround the Timanfaya area, which confirms that under Stratvs there would be groundwater. This, which has been denied by Rosa's defense since the beginning of the investigation, is key to proving that crime against the environment.
Soler's study was commissioned by the Cabildo de Lanzarote and through the Water Consortium, after the previous Podemos group in the Cabildo, headed by Carlos Meca, presented a preliminary report in May 2017 that he commissioned from this same engineer, and which pointed to the existence of a large aquifer under Timanfaya. To complete that first opinion, this second phase of the study was carried out by order of the Consortium, with an inventory of "sources" in the area.
"The source is to the aquifer as the iceberg is to the iceberg, in both cases the largest volume of fresh water is below", the report points out, which concludes that the sources found "demonstrate the existence of an aquifer associated with the high permeability of the materials thrown by the Timanfaya". Now, in addition to serving to determine if that aquifer can be used to supply water to the island, Soler's study will also be used in the Stratvs case, to prove the existence of groundwater in the area, since it has detected a cistern and a spring in the Obispo ravine, where the winery was built.
Request from the popular accusation and supported by the Prosecutor's Office
"Contrary to the defense's writing, which says that there is no water pocket under Stratvs, this report comes to say the opposite", the prosecutor has argued during the trial, who has adhered to the request of the popular accusation, exercised by Urban Transparency, to incorporate this study into the case. In addition, he has requested that Soler testify as an expert, which has also been accepted by the Chamber, as it is directly related to the crime against the environment that is being judged within this procedure.
Not even Juan Francisco Rosa's lawyer, José Antonio Choclán Montalvo, has opposed the admission of this new evidence and the testimony of this expert, since he himself has provided several new documents during the first day of the trial. However, two other defense lawyers have unsuccessfully opposed.
One of them has been the lawyer of the other defendant for this crime, the former manager of the Insular Water Council, José Juan Hernández Duchemín, who has asked that this new evidence not be admitted alleging that they had not had time to study it, given that it has been delivered to them during the hearing on a pendrive. However, the president of the Chamber has not accepted his request and has responded that in any case they could have asked for the hearing to be suspended to be able to analyze it, but not to prevent it from being contributed to the case.
Several reports warned of polluting spills
Hernández Duchemín is accused in the Stratvs case of having favorably reported the granting of a provisional permit to the winery for the emission of spills, despite the fact that he himself had previously reported that the purification system did not comply with the regulations and that Rosa should install a purification system. In addition, there were also reports that warned that these spills were polluting, including one issued by the channel guard, who carried out an inspection within that same file.
In addition, that permit was provisional and without the possibility of extension, but when it expired, the Council did not act either and the winery continued to operate for years without having a valid authorization, until in December 2013 it was sealed by order of the judge who investigated this case, Silvia Muñoz.
Similarly, the investigation revealed that although the provisional permit authorized by Hernández Duchemín established that periodic monthly analyses should be carried out to guarantee the quality of the waters, these samples were never taken. The only ones that appear were two provided by the businessman himself and were "of dubious origin", according to the investigating magistrate, since it was not proven how or where they were taken.
Rosa repeats experts, one of them drafter of the Land Law
In addition to these new tests requested by the prosecution, other documents and experts provided by the defenses have also been admitted during the first day. In the case of Rosa, he has presented new expert reports from Blanca Lozano and Francisco Villar Rojas, who was one of the drafters of the Land Law approved by the Government of Fernando Clavijo.
That Law was already used by the businessman in his defense in the first trial of this case, alleging that with the new regulations it could be legalized. However, as the lawyer of the popular accusation has recalled, these arguments were not accepted at the time by the Superior Court of Justice of the Canary Islands, nor was the attempt to use the Special Plan of La Geria, which at that time had already been declared null by a final judgment.
Rosa's defense has also provided a new report from a geologist, as well as the deed of sale of the land where the winery was built and which belonged to the Negrín family. Thanks to that agreement closed shortly before the trial, the businessman managed to get them to withdraw from the case, where they exercised the private prosecution as harmed by the usurpation of their land.
Finally, among other things, the businessman's lawyer has also provided judgments relating to other wineries, in which the promoters of works ended up being acquitted. In this regard, the Prosecutor's Office has opposed, stressing that they are different circumstances, that in those cases they were extensions of existing historical wineries and that "they will only cause confusion", although the Chamber has also decided to admit them pending their subsequent assessment.
In fact, he has done the same with all the documents that have been provided by the different defenses, including a certificate of the declaration of one of the accused, the technician of the Government of the Canary Islands Faustino García Márquez, as Favorite Son of Gran Canaria in 2017. "It has no relevance. We do not deny his curriculum or his worth, but here we are talking about very specific facts", the prosecutor has pointed out.
The head of the Cadastre alleges that he was not an official
As for the popular accusation, it has also provided new files from the Yaiza City Council, one of them that led to the closure order of the restaurant and two others on the store and the winery, initiated after the instruction of this case began.
For its part, the defense of the person who was responsible for the Cadastre of Yaiza, Blas Noda, has presented documents that affirm that "accredit" that he did not have the status of public official when the events occurred, that in reality his position was as a guard of Los Ajaches, that he had been in charge of the Cadastre "barely a year" and that only in 2011 he was recognized as labor personnel through a judgment.
The importance of this data lies in the penalty that can be requested for him. In fact, the Prosecutor's Office has increased its request on the first day of the trial, since in the provisional qualification document that penalty had been requested as if the crime of document forgery for which he is accused had been committed by a private individual, when the Penal Code establishes a higher penalty when it is a public official. Thus, he has increased his request to four years in prison, two months of fine and three years of disqualification.
As for the lawyer of José Francisco Reyes, on the first day he has limited himself to adhering to the preliminary issues raised by the rest of the defenses, since he is a public defender and has explained that he has been assigned the case recently, so he has not yet been able to study in depth the thousands of pages of which the summary consists. Reyes is currently in prison serving one of the sentences he already has behind him, and has attended the trial handcuffed and guarded by agents of the National Police.
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