"It was the usual procedure." That is the phrase that has been repeated the most on the sixth day of the trial of piece 12 of the Unión case, in which three employees of the Arrecife City Council have testified as witnesses, in addition to the representative of a company and the former mayor of the city, Manuel Fajardo Feo, who has only explained why the City Council decided to appear as an accusation in the case. As for the three employees, all are administrative assistants, but two of them have acknowledged that they signed expense proposals and invoices by order of the then Councilor for Parks and Gardens, Antonio Machín, as if they were technicians and without carrying out any verification that the payment was appropriate.
"Did you verify that the work had been done?" the prosecutor asked Loyola Hernández, after showing her one of the invoices that bears her signature next to Machín's. "I didn't review the work, obviously," the witness stated, despite the fact that her signature implied precisely giving approval to the work supposedly carried out.
"We signed what came," she stated in a particularly complicated interrogation, which led the president of the Court of the Audience, Emilio Moya, to intervene on several occasions, seeing that the witness was not answering what was being asked. "Again with the procedure," he questioned when he saw that she was again answering that it was "the usual procedure," when the question was who told her that she had to sign or if they warned her that her signature implied validating the receipt of that work. "Answer what you are being asked, it's not that complicated," Moya asked her, who then apologized to the witness when he saw that she was beginning to cry, and even asked the lawyers of the prosecution to take a break in the interrogation so that she could "calm down."
"Used by the criminal plot"
This witness was charged in the case along with another assistant and the subordinate orderly who testified on Wednesday, and who also validated payments with his signature as if he were a technician, but in all three cases the investigating judge ended up dismissing the charges against them. In the order adopting this decision, the magistrate pointed out that they were "used" by the "criminal plot," without being able to prove that they came to know it or "participate consciously."
In addition, she pointed out that none of them was a technician or had the qualification or knowledge to sign invoices, so she concluded that they were not decisive for these payments to be made and therefore the alleged embezzlement of public funds. According to the Prosecutor's Office, their signatures were only a "makeup operation" used by the accused - in this case the councilor Antonio Machín and the auditor - to give an appearance of legality.
In the case of Loyola Hernández, who has stated that she has been working at the Arrecife City Council for 18 years, she has ended up confirming that it was Machín who told her that she had to sign and who asked her to "prepare" expense proposals, without talking about this issue with any other person from the City Council. Regarding whether she carried out any control over the works, she has even pointed out that "neighbors would come to comment to her," to the surprise of the prosecutor. "Was the procedure that a neighbor would come to say that a work had been done? Did an anonymous citizen comment on it, as if a retiree who sees a work came?" he questioned.
Another assistant identifies Machín's signature
As for the other administrative assistant who worked in Antonio Machín's Council and who also signed invoices and expense proposals, Yoana Machín de León, she has confirmed emphatically that it was this councilor who brought her the proposals and who told her to sign. And also that he never explained to her what her signature implied. "It was the usual procedure," she has also repeated on several occasions. "That has become clear to us," the prosecutor pointed out in one of them.
In addition, the witness has also ratified that she did not check if the work had actually been carried out, nor did she notice that there was more than one invoice that had exactly the same object. Regarding Machín's signature, which was questioned by his defense during his statement, the worker has confirmed that it is the one that appears in the documents next to hers. In this regard, and at the prosecutor's questions, she has stated that they signed "many" documents together and that she identifies his signature.
In one of the cases, this administrative assistant signed an invoice for more than 36,000 euros. "Would you have signed an invoice of 70,000 euros the same as one of 20,000?" the prosecutor asked, emphasizing that there was no differentiation between the procedure that a minor contract must carry out and the one that exceeds a certain amount. "Was it a mechanical signature?" he interrogated, to which the witness responded yes, also pointing out that she did not think that she could not do that work despite not being qualified for it, and that she did it because the councilor asked her to.
A "usual procedure" that stopped being so after Machín's departure
After answering the questions of the Public Prosecutor and the prosecution, the two witnesses have also been questioned by Antonio Machín's lawyer, Juana Fernández de las Heras, who has asked them to explain if that "usual procedure" to which they referred already existed before her client arrived at the Council. However, none has responded affirmatively. One of them has pointed out that she does not remember and the other that she joined the area when Machín was already the councilor.
Regarding the question of whether the same procedure continued to be done afterwards, signing invoices even though they were not technicians, both have responded emphatically that no, that this way of proceeding ended with Antonio Machín's departure from the Council. Regarding the reason he gave them for doing so, both have pointed out that it was because there were no technicians in the area, although the prosecutor has emphasized that there were in Contracting and in the Technical Office, which had "up to five architects," but despite this, workers without qualification were made to sign invoices and expense proposals.