Ignacio Calatayud declared before the judge that the decision to seize a desalination plant in Playa Blanca without a court order was adopted exclusively by the president of the Cabildo and the Council, Pedro San Ginés, despite the fact that he had raised other alternatives, as EFE advances.
The lawyer assured that the order to break the padlock of access to the plant's facilities and to proceed with the entry and seizure of the same "supposes" that it was given by the president Pedro San Ginés, or by the mayor of Yaiza, Gladys Acuña.
Calatayud, who acted in the process as an external advisor, declared this Friday as an accused for several hours before the head of the Court of Instruction number two of Arrecife in the criminal process that is being followed against the president of the Cabildo, Pedro San Ginés and others for prevarication and coercion in the seizure of a private desalination plant, owned by the company Club Lanzarote, in the municipality of Yaiza.
The plant was seized from its owners and in the same act placed in the hands of the private company Canal Gestión Lanzarote,
Calatayud had been summoned to testify as an accused, as was the general secretary of the Cabildo of Lanzarote, Francisco Perdomo, in order to clarify the participation of both in the process of seizing the plant, which was recently returned to its owners by court order.
According to the statement of the lawyer, external advisor to the Insular Water Council, the Insular Water Consortium and the private company Canal Gestión Lanzarote, it was the president of the Cabildo, in his capacity as president of the Insular Water Council, who decided to seize the plant despite the fact that as a lawyer he offered him "two other alternatives" such as "the cessation of activity or the closure" of the facilities and if there was a shortage "other measures".
Ignacio Calatayud assured the judge that the president of the Cabildo knew of his status as advisor to the private company Canal Gestión, thus contradicting the judicial statement made a few weeks ago by the main defendant in the case, Pedro San Ginés, who assured that he was unaware of such an extreme.
The lawyer also stated that "no one consulted him if a prior written report on the legality of the seizure was necessary" and that his participation during it was totally passive and advisory.
Calatayud also denied before the judge having a personal friendship with the president of the Cabildo, despite the fact that Pedro San Ginés has publicly acknowledged, even during the celebration of a plenary session of the Corporation, such friendship.
Judicial sources pointed out that clarifying the existence or not of such a personal friendship between the president and the lawyer may be important in the process to clarify the conditions under which the legal assistance assignments invoiced by the lawyer to various bodies dependent on the Cabildo were carried out.
The hydraulic installations of the Montaña Roja urbanization were seized by the Insular Water Council in September of last year and, in the same act, transferred by the Water Consortium to Canal Gestión Lanzarote to take care of them as concessionaire of the integral water cycle on the Island.
Precisely in recent weeks, the judge ordered the company Canal Gestión Lanzarote to provide all the contracts signed by the company with the lawyer Ignacio Calatayud, documents that are already in court, according to sources close to the case.
The president of the Cabildo, Pedro San Ginés, declared at the beginning of last month and for more than two hours, as accused for this cause in which the managers of the Insular Water Council and the Insular Water Consortium, José Juan Hernández Duchemín and Domingo Pérez Callero, respectively, are also accused.
The declaration of San Ginés and the two officials occurred after last June 23, the Sixth Section of the Provincial Court ordered to process the complaint filed against them by the company Club Lanzarote, owner of the intervened desalination plant, when the magistrates appreciated "alleged crimes" in the seizure.
Although in the first instance the complaint was filed by the Court of Instruction Number 2 of Arrecife, the Court annulled that decision and ordered its processing to investigate the facts denounced by Club Lanzarote.
Precisely these are the same facts for which a chamber of the Superior Court of Justice of the Canary Islands, in administrative litigation, adopted precautionary measures in a judgment issued on June 17 in which it annuls the seizure and orders the plant to be returned to its owners, a measure that was recently executed.
