The story of “traps”, “falsehoods” and “lies” that the prosecutor of the Stratvs case, Elena Herrera, put on the table when presenting her conclusions in the trial, could open a new chapter beyond this hearing, which will come to an end this Tuesday and in which ten people are being judged. In her final intervention, the representative of the Public Prosecutor's Office requested that proceedings be opened against the notary Pedro Botella, since in light of the evidence presented during the trial, she considers that he may have incurred in crimes, by making public contracts that were not even signed.
“At the very least, I see myself obliged to request a deduction of testimony against this gentleman”, the prosecutor pointed out. “He makes public a verbal contract with a person who does not appear at the notary's office. He cannot authorize a contract with a person who is not present and who, furthermore, I presume had died in 2015. I believe we are skipping several rules of the legal system”, Herrera warned.
The notary's intervention is related to one of the crimes for which Juan Francisco Rosa is accused, for having usurped land to build Stratvs on land that was not even his property. “This gentleman has not proven ownership of anything”, she recalled, stressing that neither the architect of the winery, Miguel Ángel Armas Matallana, appeared as the owner of the land, contrary to what Rosa stated. “Ownership is not justified with contracts that are not signed. And neither with verbal contracts with the dead”, the prosecutor added, referring to the deed that was made years after the works were finished, when this criminal case had already begun and some of the legitimate owners of the land had appeared as private prosecution, in their capacity as injured parties.
“They didn't even know where the winery was”
When the investigation began, and at the request of the Prosecutor's Office, the Court requested the deeds of ownership of the farm. “Do you know what Miguel Ángel Armas Matallana answered? That what plots are we talking about. They didn't even know where the winery was”, the prosecutor questioned, recalling that Stratvs was initially registered in another farm that did belong to Rosa, but where there was really no construction, in what constitutes another of the “deceptions” that are being judged in this case.
It was in 2012 when several private purchase agreements were supposedly drawn up, by which the architect claims that he became the owner of a part of the land that belonged to several members of his family. However, those contracts are not signed by the selling party. “A good way to justify the acquisition of ownership, with contracts that are not signed”, Elena Herrera ironized.
Despite this, three years later, the notary Pedro Botella made those contracts public, with a deed dated in 2015 that was provided with the defense brief of the accused. Furthermore, in that document, Miguel Ángel Armas Matallana also maintained that he had bought from his mother, already deceased, not only the part of the land that belonged to her, but also another percentage that he claims to have acquired “by right of withdrawal”. However, that file is also not on record, despite which the notary made it public in this deed.
“By the work and grace of the holy spirit, one part is already owned by Armas Matallana, with sales contracts that are not signed; and another part is the same, because he bought it from his mother by word of mouth and by a right of withdrawal that is not on record”, the prosecutor questioned, who recalled that the law requires that in the event of death, the heirs appear at the notary's office to recognize the validity of the contract that is being notarized.
“The true promoter of the file was deliberately hidden”
Furthermore, she also recounted other “falsehoods” in relation to the ownership of the land, including another purchase agreement from 1998, of a small percentage of the farm that the architect's wife, Piedad del Río, had supposedly acquired. In this case, it was she herself who declared - both during the investigation and in the trial - that she had not signed that document. And neither any of those that were presented in her name in different institutions, when the authorizations began to be requested to build Stratvs.
“The true promoter of the file was deliberately hidden, who we know from the first moment was Juan Francisco Rosa”, the prosecutor pointed out, recalling that it was Rosa's workers who presented the requests, that “he has recognized that he was behind it” and that even a fax was sent to the Government of the Canary Islands from Galerías Rosa, despite the fact that Piedad del Río appeared as the owner of the file.
In her statement as a witness, Miguel Armas' wife declared that they had an agreement with Rosa, by which they would keep the pre-existing house that they were supposedly going to rehabilitate, while the businessman would manage the winery. “Would you put an industrial winery 15 meters from your house? This was never a family home and a winery. From the first moment it was designed in a totally different way”, Elena Herrera emphasized, who also described the project that was presented to request authorization for the works as “mendacious” and “false”.
According to that project prepared by Miguel Ángel Armas Matallana, what was going to be done was to rehabilitate the existing house and build a small warehouse winery of 900 square meters. However, according to the investigation, what was done was to demolish the house and build a new, larger one - where the store was located -, and build a complex of about 12,000 square meters, where in addition to the winery there is a restaurant and different rooms, terraces and parking lots in the heart of La Geria, on protected land where it was not possible to build.
“He registered the winery on a farm where he knew there was nothing”
Once Stratvs was built, Rosa bought an adjacent farm and registered the complex there in 2006. “He was not the owner of anything. He knows perfectly well that he is registering the winery on a farm where there is nothing”, the prosecutor warned, who among other things accuses Rosa of several crimes of documentary falsification.
Furthermore, along with him, other officials are accused of these crimes, such as the quantity surveyor of the Yaiza City Council Pablo Carrasco and the head of the Cadastre, Blas Noda, for having contributed to that “deception”. In the case of Noda, years later, in 2013, he changed the cadastral ownership “without even verifying the meters” of the farm, which did not coincide, and without giving a hearing to the legitimate owners.
Some of them, belonging to the Negrín family, were present as private prosecution in this case, although they ended up withdrawing a year before this trial began, when Rosa finally paid them for the allegedly usurped land. In this case, Rosa also claimed that he had an “oral” agreement with the Negrín since 1998, when he requested the first permits. However, it was 20 years later when he made the payment, thus managing to withdraw as an accusation from this procedure.
