The former president of the Cabildo, Pedro San Ginés, has used one of the halls of the Island Corporation this Tuesday to appear before the press and give details of the new judicial investigation against him, which this Monday led the UCO to search his home for several hours. In his appearance, San Ginés himself explained that one of the reasons for the investigation focuses on the purchase of his house, in which he lived for years on rent and then ended up acquiring, on a date that he did not want to specify. The property belonged to the lawyer Felipe Fernández Camero, who is the father-in-law of the lawyer who is also being investigated in this new case, Ignacio Calatayud, for the payments he received under the presidency of San Ginés.
"I am being investigated for the misappropriation of 850,000 euros by that lawyer with my complicity", the former president pointed out, recalling that those payments were "politically denounced" by the president, María Dolores Corujo, and "brought to the attention of the Prosecutor's Office by Podemos". In addition, he is also charged with the hiring itself of this lawyer to carry out the insolvency proceedings of Inalsa in 2010. "That is not new. What is new is the alleged relationship with the acquisition of the house where I reside," said San Ginés. And that "relationship" would imply that a possible crime of bribery is being investigated by the UCO and the investigating judge, who was the one who authorized those searches.
"All payments for the house in which I live are absolutely legal," San Ginés assured the press. However, he did not answer the question of when he made that purchase -and if it coincided in time with the payments to Calatayud-, and he has not clarified what the amount was either. The latter could be one of the elements of the investigation, to check if that acquisition price corresponded to market prices. In this regard, the only thing that the former president of the Cabildo has pointed out is that he resided in that house on rent since 2007, first with a contract in the name of who was then his partner and then with another in his name. "Finally I acquired it with a lease agreement with an option to buy," he limited himself to pointing out.
Press conference in the Cabildo and with his lawyer
San Ginés has appeared in the Cabildo accompanied by his lawyer, who has not intervened, while almost all the councilors of the Canarian Coalition -including the one who is also the island secretary of the party, Migdalia Machín- have followed the press conference from the back of the room. "My voice is broken by a cold problem, it is nothing else," the former president clarified at the beginning of his speech, after asking if the "protocol" allowed him to remove his mask.
Next, he explained that, since the case is under summary secrecy, on Monday he asked the agents for permission to give some details, given the questions that he knew he would have to face. Thus, he has referred to the three axes that, according to him, focus the investigation, which are the hiring of Calatayud for the Inalsa insolvency, the payments that were paid to the lawyer and the economic benefit that San Ginés would allegedly have received in exchange, materialized at least in the purchase of that house that belonged to Calatayud's father-in-law.
"I am basically being investigated for that", he pointed out, leaving the door open to the possibility that there may be other lines of investigation.
The initial budget was multiplied almost fivefold
Regarding the hiring of the lawyer for the insolvency proceedings, he insisted that it occurred after the voluntary resignation of Judge Cobo Plana, and that it was approved in the Board of Directors of Inalsa "unanimously". "It was to represent the administration in everything related to the process," added San Ginés, who added that he "understands" that this also included insolvency incidents.
However, what was denounced precisely in its day, among other things, is that the lawyer ended up charging a sum that had nothing to do with the initial budget that was presented. That budget, in fact, included the entire procedure, but Calatayud ended up charging separately for each phase and each incident. Initially, 199,020 euros were established for the entire contest, but the lawyer ended up receiving almost five times more.
In addition, in that Board of Directors to which San Ginés has appealed, the economic conditions were never approved. Only his proposal to resort to this lawyer was voted on, but without defining how much he would charge. At that time, the government group was formed by CC, the PP, the PIL and the PNL, after the motion of censure that they had just presented to the socialist Manuela Armas after the outbreak of Operation Union. Thus, the session chaired by Pedro San Ginés in January 2010 was attended by Fabián Martín, Plácida Guerra, Ramón Bermúdez, Juan Carlos Becerra, José Pablo Lemes, Ástrid Pérez, Jesús Machín and José Torres Stinga.
For the moment, at least Ástrid Pérez and José Torres Stinga have been summoned to testify as witnesses before the UCO at the Civil Guard barracks, where they were on Monday afternoon.
