The magistrate of the Criminal Chamber of the Superior Court of Justice of the Canary Islands, Margarita Varona, has agreed to the opening of oral trial against the magistrate Salvador Alba Mesa, member of the Sixth Section of the Provincial Court of Las Palmas, as the alleged perpetrator of five crimes: judicial prevarication (knowingly issuing a manifestly unfair resolution), bribery, forgery, disclosure of secrets and negotiations and activities prohibited to public officials. The date of the trial will be set in the coming months.
The opening of the oral trial will mean that Salvador Alba will be suspended preventively from his duties, although this measure must be agreed by the Permanent Commission of the General Council of the Judiciary, which meets every week, as confirmed to La Voz from the same.
In the order, the magistrate not only declares the last phase of the criminal process open in the first instance, but also requires Alba Mesa to provide a bond of 85,000 euros within 24 hours to satisfy the civil liabilities in which he may incur. In the event that this bond is not provided, he warns that assets will be seized to cover the indicated sum.
Request for 10 years in prison and 29 of disqualification
The accusation against Salvador Alba is related to the private interview that the judge held in March 2016 with the businessman Miguel Ángel Ramírez, in which he allegedly conspired to professionally harm his colleague, the magistrate Victoria Rosell -at that time a candidate for Congress for Podemos- and according to the investigation, he promised Ramírez alleged preferential treatment in a criminal process against him, in exchange for providing data to act against Rosell.
The Public Prosecutor's Office has already stated that in its provisional qualification document it requests a total of 10 years in prison and 29 of disqualification for the judge. The magistrate Victoria Rosell herself is involved in the case as a victim and her sentimental partner, the journalist Carlos Sosa, and the Podemos political party as private prosecution, the latter two in the condition of popular actions. These three accusations are interested in more severe penalties than the Public Prosecutor's Office. Salvador Alba, for his part, maintains through his legal direction that he is innocent of the charges against him and consequently asks for his free acquittal.
He was supposed to judge the Stratvs case and the main parts of Unión
The order informs the General Council of the Judiciary of the situation in which Salvador Alba is left, which can now initiate the process to suspend him preventively from his duties as a magistrate. It so happens that Alba is the one who was supposed to judge the main corruption cases that are still pending trial in Lanzarote, including some of the main parts of the Unión case, as well as the central part of the Stratvs case, not only as one of the three members of the Sixth Section of the Provincial Court that will preside over those trials, but also as the rapporteur of some of those sentences.
In the Stratvs case, the magistrate already had a controversial intervention a little over a year ago, when he upheld an appeal by the businessman Juan Francisco Rosa and lifted the precautionary measure of closing the winery, which had been ordered by the investigating judge. At that time, the content of his order led the popular accusation, represented by Urban Transparency, to request that both he and his colleagues in the Chamber be recused in this case.
Alba is also the rapporteur for the so-called Faycan case as of today, and in this case, the TSJC points out that in the event that when the magistrate is suspended from his duties, the drafting of the judgment is not finished, the Sixth Section of the Provincial Court will adopt the resolution that proceeds, avoiding if possible the repetition of the trial.
According to the TSJC, the order in which the beginning of the oral trial phase of the process is agreed is only susceptible to appeal in terms of the personal situation of the accused, which in no way affects the Andalusian magistrate, who is at liberty. This implies that, inevitably, there will be an oral trial against Alba Mesa, and that he will have to sit in the dock, although due to his status as a lawyer he will be able to sit next to his lawyer, thus avoiding his physical location in the place reserved for the accused.