The trial of the Yate case, for the massive granting of illegal licenses in Playa Blanca in exchange for bribes, has been adjourned for sentencing this Tuesday in the City of Justice of Las Palmas de Gran Canaria. Eleven years after the investigation began, all that remains is for the Provincial Court to issue its ruling, which will have nine guaranteed convictions, after the confession of most of the defendants.
This has meant that the trial has taken place in just two days, of less than three hours each, compared to the two and a half months that were initially scheduled to hold the oral hearing. In addition, on this last day of the trial, the Public Prosecutor's Office and the popular prosecution have ended up waiving three experts who were due to testify this Tuesday, due to technical problems in establishing communication by videoconference with the Courts of Lanzarote. And it is that in case of not having resigned, the hearing would have had to be suspended, without knowing when a new date would be set.
Compared to the 11 defendants who sat on the bench on Monday, this Tuesday there were only two left, the head of the Technical Office of Yaiza, Antonio Lorenzo, and the tax advisor José Rafael Mesa Ferrer, who are the only ones who have not recognized the facts or accepted the penalties requested for them by the Public Prosecutor's Office. For Lorenzo, accused of a crime of urban planning prevarication for issuing a positive report to the urbanization project of the illegal Playa Blanca Partial Plan, the prosecutor is asking for 8 and a half years of disqualification.
"Alternative qualification" for Rafael Mesa Ferrer
As for Rafael Mesa Ferrer, he is accused of having helped to launder the money that the former mayor of Yaiza, José Francisco Reyes, admits to having received with bribes from various businessmen. For him, the Prosecutor's Office initially requested 2 years and 9 months in prison, 5 years of disqualification and a fine of 143,840 euros. However, when presenting his final conclusions, the prosecutor Javier Ródenas has also raised an "alternative qualification", in a subsidiary manner, in case the Chamber does not consider the criminal type for which the accusation has been formulated against him to be proven.
In this regard, it should be recalled that already on the first day of the trial, Rafael Mesa Ferrer focused his defense on the fact that it was his brother, the also accused Benito Mesa Ferrer, who was in charge of the company they shared, Management & Consulting Lanzarote SL. Through that company, a shell company of José Francisco Reyes, Sea Sun Lanzarote, was administered, created to hide his assets, according to the confession of the former mayor himself and also the other accused brother tax advisor.
In his conclusions, the prosecutor has insisted that Rafael Mesa Ferrer did intervene directly in that laundering and, to support it, has recounted the different facts that show the close relationship he had with Reyes, including a trip they made together paid with public funds from the Yaiza City Council. In any case, if that direct intervention is not considered proven, he has pointed out that there would be a crime for "serious recklessness", which is what he has raised as an alternative qualification. And it is that as a joint administrator of the company, he was obliged to know its activity or if it was being used "to launder money from urban corruption".
In the event that this other criminal type of money laundering is estimated, the prosecutor has requested an alternative penalty with less prison time, specifically 15 months, but a higher fine. Thus, to the 143,840 euros that he initially requested for this defendant, he has demanded that another 146,320 euros be added.
The sentence will decide on the illegality of Marina Rubicón
Before moving on to the final conclusions of the Prosecutor's Office, the popular prosecution and the defenses, on Tuesday only three agents of the National Police, from the money laundering unit, who carried out the asset report of Reyes in their day, and a technician from the Government of the Canary Islands finally testified. The latter has declared in relation to the Playa Blanca Partial Plan, although her interrogation has only been to ratify the report she issued in her day on the illegality of that Plan and its processing.
Now, with the agreements of nine of the defendants, the Court will only have to rule on the guilt or innocence of Antonio Lorenzo and Rafael Mesa Ferrer. And also on the license of the Marina Rubicón marina, which the Prosecutor's Office is asking to be declared illegal in this case. It should be recalled that of all the licenses that have been analyzed in this criminal proceeding, all had already been annulled in the contentious-administrative channel, including the 19 hotel and apartment complexes and the Playa Blanca Partial Plan as a whole.
The lawyer who won those lawsuits representing the Cabildo, and who prepared the report on which the complaint that gave rise to this case was based, Agustín Domingo Acosta, was one of the experts who was due to testify this Tuesday, although his testimony has ended up being waived due to the technical problems to connect with the Courts of Lanzarote. And the same has happened with the one who was head of the Technical Office of the Island Plan of the Cabildo, Leopoldo Díaz, and the one who was technician of that same Office, Esteban Armas, when the Cabildo was "an example of the defense of urban legality", according to the lawyer of the private prosecution.
Bribes worth hundreds of thousands of euros in cash and gifts
Now, the complaint filed 11 years ago by the then Minister of Territorial Policy of the Cabildo, Carlos Espino, who decided to go to the criminal route, has ended in the confession of nine defendants, including the former mayor, who acknowledges that he was fully aware of the illegality of those licenses and that he granted them in exchange for bribes. Among them, he has admitted the collection of 300,000 euros in cash from various businessmen, to which are added many other 'gifts', such as enjoying a free berth in the Marina Rubicón marina. Only that "gift" is valued at more than 60,000 euros, and Reyes has confessed that he received it in exchange for granting an illegal license to that port and to three hotels of the owners of Marina Rubicón: the Princesa Yaiza and the Son Bou, owned by Juan Francisco Rosa, and the Meliá Volcán, whose license was requested by Francisco Armas and belongs to the Martinón group.
For the nine defendants who have shown their agreement with the indictment, in principle the sentence will be limited to making those convictions official. In the case of Reyes, he will be sentenced to 6 years in prison, 21 years of disqualification, a fine that he has already paid of more than 300,000 euros -to cover the amounts that are claimed from him, his wife and his three children- and the confiscation of the assets he bought with the money from the bribes, including part of an apartment in Tenerife, the boat El Pachi, 5 vehicles and a spa. In addition, the money that was in his current accounts when they were seized within that case will be confiscated, as well as the 13,000 euros in cash that were found in his home.
