More than 20 years after the investigation of the La Bufona case began, the procedure is once again suspended and awaiting a retrial that actually took place four years ago, but was annulled and must be repeated. And for the moment, the first step is to find a judge to take charge of the proceedings, since two magistrates have decided to abstain, after the case has returned to the Arrecife Courts and the owners of the homes have been incorporated as subsidiary civil liable parties.
That was what the Provincial Court of Las Palmas ordered almost a year ago, when it annulled the trial in which the promoters of those homes were convicted of a continuing crime against land planning: the architect Federico Echevarría and the builder Antonio Caro. The sentence was already final and was in the execution phase when the owners of the affected houses -among whom are the former coordinating prosecutor of Lanzarote, Miguel Pallarés, and the island president of the PP, Ástrid Pérez-, requested the nullity of the proceedings, alleging that they were "harmed" by a ruling that also ordered the partial demolition of their homes.
In fact, in the execution phase of the sentence, Echevarría and Caro requested that the owners bear the costs of the demolition, since several acknowledged that after acquiring them they had carried out works in the back of the houses -which is what sits on protected rustic land-, and that they did not request a license for it. However, finally that execution was suspended when the trial was annulled and the request of the owners of the homes was granted, who alleged that they had not been offered the opportunity to appear in the case, in which they did testify as witnesses.
"Evidently, it could be considered whether this situation is not the result of their own and voluntary neglect or lack of interest in defending their position when they could not be unaware of the existence of the procedure, even if only because of the public importance it has had," the Court pointed out in its response. However, although it considered "at least strange that they did not know the consequences that the conviction that could be handed down could have for their houses", it added that "we cannot raise that strangeness, that suspicion, to the level of certainty that is necessary in this case." For this reason, it annulled the actions taken in the case since December 2011 -when the Public Prosecutor's Office filed its indictment-, and ordered the proceedings to be taken back to that moment, so that the owners of the properties could be summoned as civil liable parties and the trial could be held again.
Suspended pending a new pronouncement from the Court
That order was issued almost a year ago and since then, the case has entered another standstill. In fact, right now it does not even have a judge in charge of the proceedings and the procedure is suspended, pending a new pronouncement from the Provincial Court, since the second magistrate to whom the case had fallen has requested to abstain from this procedure.
The first to do so was the magistrate of the Court of First Instance Number 3 of Arrecife, who last January submitted a "reasoned writing" to the Court requesting to withdraw from the procedure, since she pointed out that there was "cause for abstention" based on an article of the Organic Law of the Judiciary on the abstention or recusal of judges. Specifically, the article to which she referred applies when one of the parties has been a "subordinate" of the judge in whom the procedure falls. And in this case, all the owners of the affected homes have been incorporated into the case as civil liable parties.
On March 22, the Court considered that abstention justified, so the proceedings passed to the judge who has been assigned his legal replacement, the head of the Court of Instance Number 2 of Arrecife. However, this judge has also requested to abstain based on the same law. In his case, he addressed the Court on April 10, which must now rule again. And in the meantime, the "suspension" of a procedure that began 20 years ago has been agreed again.
"Ridiculous" sentences due to the delay in the investigation
This new standstill in the case adds to all the obstacles, errors and delays that it has suffered during the last two decades, and that among other things reduced the penalties for those convicted to the point of being "ridiculous", as the Provincial Court described them when issuing the final judgment of second instance.
That second ruling further reduced the initial penalties for undue delays, setting them at two months in prison for each defendant, which could be replaced by a fine of 1,200 euros, in addition to another fine of 1,200 euros and three months less one day of special disqualification for the profession of promoter or builder.
In addition, that sentence has not even been served, as the trial and therefore the sentence have been annulled. Thus, two decades after the events were reported by Seprona, the houses remain standing and the Murillo family, which claims to be the owner of those lands, continues to wait for a new trial to be held.
