The Stratvs case trial was adjourned for sentencing this Tuesday after almost thirty sessions that began more than half a year ago, which were interrupted by the Covid-19 crisis and were about to be suspended again two weeks ago, due to a health problem of one of the magistrates, which could have forced the entire trial to be repeated. "Believe it or not, the proceedings are adjourned for sentencing... which presumably will not be handed down this week. The trial is over," Judge Carlos Vielba said at the end of the hearing, sparking laughter in the courtroom. And given the complexity and volume of the case, the ruling could take several weeks or even months to be handed down.
On this last day, the defenses of nine of the ten defendants presented their conclusions, while last Friday the Prosecutor's Office, the popular accusation, exercised by Urban Transparency, and the lawyer of the tenth defendant, the former manager of the Island Water Council, José Juan Hernández Duchemín, did so.
In their final arguments, the lawyers have requested the acquittal of their defendants, while the prosecutor and the lawyer for the prosecution consider that the crimes for which they are accused have been fully proven during the trial. In the case of Juan Francisco Rosa, the Prosecutor's Office maintains a request for 15 years in prison, while Urban Transparency raises the request to 21 years in prison.
After the presentation of all the conclusions, the magistrate offered the defendants the possibility of exercising their right to the last word in the trial, although most rejected it. "Nothing to allege," Rosa limited himself to saying. However, the former municipal building surveyor of Yaiza, Pablo Carrasco, and the former manager of the Island Water Council, José Juan Hernández Duchemín, did use that word.
Carrasco, who has already faced other trials and was in fact removed from his position in the City Council seven years ago for another conviction for prevarication, has described as a "calvary" what he has experienced with this case and has stated that he does not understand the reasons why he was charged and accused.
"I may have been wrong, but never knowingly"
"I am facing a seven-year prison sentence for doing my job," said the former municipal building surveyor, who assured that "when he reported, he did so without any intention or influence." "When there has been talk here of omertá or the law of silence to protect certain people, I do not feel identified at all, and I believe that neither does a good part of the society of Lanzarote, which does not live those confrontations," he maintained, in response to what the lawyer of the popular accusation, Irma Ferrer, raised in her conclusions, when she spoke of the influence that Juan Francisco Rosa exerts on the island.
"I may have been wrong, but never knowingly," Pablo Carrasco defended when talking about his reports, which already led him to another conviction. "My doubts are greater after seeing all kinds of witnesses and experts with much more training than me, alleging such different interpretations of the laws, which have made me feel so far away from everything as if everything were part of another world," he said when talking about what happened throughout the trial, in reference to the expert reports presented by Rosa himself, which are the only ones that contradict the criteria of all the public officials who have testified as experts in the trial.
Thus, as he did in his statement, Carrasco has once again shielded himself in his possible ignorance and also in the authorization that the Government of the Canary Islands had granted to Stratvs before the City Council granted the license.
"I can only say that I am almost certain that if the construction of the winery had been carried out in accordance with the authorization of the Government of the Canary Islands and the subsequent municipal license, we would not be holding this trial today," the accused concluded, thus blaming the businessman for his situation. And the fact is that what Rosa built multiplied by 13 what had been authorized, which was the rehabilitation of a house and the construction of an underground warehouse of 900 square meters.
The Prosecutor's Office accuses Pablo Carrasco of having reported in favor of that municipal license without even having requested two compatibility reports that were mandatory and without respecting the Island Plan or the Yaiza General Plan itself; and of having later allowed the granting of an extension of that license, when it had already expired years ago, also including at that time the word "winery". "It may seem like a trivial matter, but it is not," the prosecutor stressed in her conclusions, recalling that at that time Rosa was processing the license for classified activities, and needed to request it for a winery and not for a basement.
To these two crimes, the popular accusation adds a third of fraud to the administration, related to the fees and taxes that the Yaiza City Council charged Juan Francisco Rosa, which it understands did not correspond to what the businessman should have actually paid. "A fee of 30,000 pesetas was charged (the current equivalent of 180 euros). I don't think even the excavation of the soil included those 30,000 pesetas. It was a clear fraud to the Yaiza City Council, because the real fee has never been charged," the lawyer said, recalling the magnitude of the work. By adding this third crime, the prosecution asks for him seven years in prison, compared to the five that the Prosecutor's Office demands.
José Juan Hernández Duchemín's "nightmare"
As for the other defendant who has decided to use his last turn to speak, José Juan Hernández Duchemín, he has also begun by describing as a "nightmare" what he has experienced with this trial. "I am about to retire and for me this whole process has been a real nightmare. For me and for my family," he said. "I have always tried to comply with the law. I have just completed 46 years of service in the Cabildo as a civil servant and I have never had any blemish," added the former manager of the Island Water Council, who in reality still has another trial pending, for his intervention in the seizure of the Montaña Roja desalination plant together with the former president of the Cabildo, Pedro San Ginés.
"This is very painful and the truth is, I do not consider myself an influenced official at all, as has been said," added Hernández Duchemín, who despite having held some of the positions of greatest responsibility in the Cabildo - including that of secretary - during the investigation of this case declared that he only has "studies up to COU".
In addition, the former manager of the Water Council has insisted again that his intervention in the file to authorize the waste water from Stratvs was limited to issuing "a simple procedural proposal". "All I'm saying is that I don't think it's a bad thing to give the authorization. I'm not even saying that it should be given. It is not a binding proposal," he argued, stating that the one who had the powers was the president of the Council, who was then Fabián Martín. "That authority could have been perfectly advised, either through the secretary or other officials," he added.
For its part, the Prosecutor's Office recalled in its conclusions that when Hernández Duchemín reported in favor of granting a provisional authorization to the discharges from Stratvs, he already had reports warning of its contamination. In this regard, Elena Herrera stressed that the regulations allow the presence of a maximum of 1,000 coliform units, and in the sample from one of the Stratvs pits, 300,000 were detected, that is, 300 times more than allowed.
In addition, he also accuses the former manager of another crime against the environment by omission, for not having carried out any inspection after the granting of that permit - which established that monthly analyses would be carried out - nor having adopted measures when that authorization expired and the winery continued to operate.
"The organic statute of the Council that regulates the functions of the manager attributes to me the powers to enforce the rules on police and channels, but I am not the watchman, I am not the instructor. I act when I receive some indication or complaint from someone," Duchemín has argued in this regard. "If I had received any indication of a complaint, I would have acted perfectly, despite the few resources available to the Council," defended the former manager, who in his statement assured that despite the public analyses that warned of the contamination, he "trusted" a private report presented by Rosa himself.
"There is no legal doubt about the protection of the soil"
Regarding the rest of the defendants, their defenses have once again questioned in the last day of the trial even the protected nature of the natural space of La Geria, as well as the validity of the PIOT, clinging to the expert witnesses hired by Rosa. "There is no legal doubt about the protection of the soil," said the prosecutor, who also denied that there is a statute of limitations for some crimes, as the defenses of several defendants maintain.
Thus, in her last intervention in the hearing she maintained the accusation also against the architect of the winery, Miguel Ángel Armas Matallana; against the former mayor of Yaiza, José Francisco Reyes - who has attended the last day by videoconference from the Tahíche prison, where he is serving a sentence for the Yate case -; against the former Councilor for Urban Planning, José Antonio Rodríguez; against the one who was in charge of the Cadastre of Yaiza, Blas Noda; and against two of the people who intervened in the granting of the authorization from the Government of the Canary Islands: Faustino García Márquez and Armando Villavencio. For its part, Urban Transparency also formulates an accusation against Juan César Muñoz Sosa, who was the general director of Urban Planning of the Government of the Canary Islands when that permit was granted.
In addition, the Public Prosecutor reiterated in its conclusions its request that the winery be demolished, "or that it remain in the state most similar to the original land." And the fact is that, contrary to what was maintained by the defenses, it considers it sufficiently proven that what was built is not only illegal, but also unlegalizable. In this regard, the lawyer of the popular accusation stressed that despite all the plans approved subsequently, and which were wielded by Juan Francisco Rosa to ensure that they covered Stratvs, the truth is that the businessman has not even initiated in all these years a file to try to legalize the facilities, which were sealed in December 2013 by court order, as a precautionary measure during the investigation of this case, and which to this day remain closed.
