The First Section of the Provincial Court has decided to suspend the oral trial of the Montecarlo case, scheduled for this Monday in Arrecife. For the moment, the Chamber has postponed its celebration until October 2025. Specifically, from October 6 to 24.
The reason for the postponement is that the lawyer of Lorenzo Lemaur has not appeared at the session. The defense lawyer, appointed by the duty shift on December 11, resigned that same day from his defense for health reasons. In addition, in the letter to which La Voz de Lanzarote had access, he alleged that since 2021 he could not perform face-to-face duties for the same reason.
"This Court is fully aware of the damage to the administration of Justice. On behalf of the Court, I apologize. We are fully aware of what it means to schedule this trial for October 2025 when we are starting 2024," the presiding judge of the Chamber highlighted when announcing the postponement of the trial.
For its part, the Public Prosecutor's Office has emphasized the "serious damage" that the suspension of the oral hearing generates to the defendants. While the popular accusation, led by Urban Transparency (TU), points out the seriousness of the fact that said lawyer is "registered in the duty shift."
To conclude, the Chamber has given the floor to Lorenzo Lemaur, for whom the Public Prosecutor's Office requests four and a half years of prison, absolute disqualification for nine years and the payment of costs, who has indicated that he does not have "economic resources to hire a lawyer" so he will continue his process to be assigned one from the duty shift.
Montecarlo Case
This last piece of the Montecarlo case investigates the allegedly illegal payments for services not provided to the company Tunera Producciones. Eleven people will sit in the dock accused of the alleged crimes of embezzlement of public funds, fraud against the administration, administrative prevarication and document forgery.
According to the Prosecutor's Office's indictment, it requests for all of them between three and six years of prison, the payment of fines and the possible return to the City Council of the money allegedly looted from the public coffers of the capital.
Among the accused is the former mayor of Arrecife and then Councilor for Finance José Montelongo (PSOE), the former comptroller of the capital Carlos Sáez. In addition to Eduardo Lasso (PIL), Isabel Martinón (PNL), Víctor Sanginés (PSOE) and the former councilor Lorenzo Lemaur (PP), the businessman and owner of Tunera Producciones Eduardo Ferrer and several City Council workers: José Nieves Caraballo, Miguel Ángel Leal, Blas Antonio Cedrés and Francisco Hernández Betancort.
