A new statement given this Wednesday in the Arrecife Courts has become a key piece in the case opened for the Playa Blanca licenses plot. For more than three hours, a witness has provided specific data on the relationship between a Basque company and the former mayor of Yaiza, José Francisco Reyes, confirming the alleged bribes that Reyes himself confessed in his day, although he later retracted.
Specifically, the witness who appeared this Wednesday before the judge of the Court of Instruction Number 2 of Arrecife, María Dolores García Benítez, and the prosecutor, Ignacio Stampa, in the presence of the other lawyers of the parties involved (prosecution and defense), has stated that a Basque businessman gave 500,000 euros to José Francisco Reyes, in exchange for the granting of licenses to build in the Playa Blanca Partial Plan. According to his testimony, several "Christmas gifts" that the former mayor would have received from this same company would have been added to this high economic figure.
In addition, the witness pointed to the alleged intermediary who acted in the operation, and also stated that Reyes would have accepted that money, supposedly, for his party, the PNL. A new accusation that also reinforces what was stated by the former mayor himself at the time, and that could open new fronts in this case that began more than three years ago.
The confession
In the statement he gave after being arrested on September 30, 2009, Reyes gave the names of six businessmen, who became charged in the case, and in some cases, he stated that he received money "in collaboration for the party issue".
In addition, he pointed to a seventh person whom he referred to as "the Basque from Playa Blanca", claiming that he did not remember his name, but of whom he said, according to his statement, that "he also offered him money for a collaboration and he accepted, because he had a series of plots" and wanted him to "speed up the procedures".
Now, this witness has named that Basque businessman, and has even pointed to another person as an intermediary, giving one more element to the accusation that is maintained in this case, which already has about fifteen defendants, with crimes ranging from prevarication to bribery, embezzlement of funds, influence peddling and money laundering.
Reversal
Reyes spent two and a half months in pre-trial detention for this case, after being arrested along with his wife and three of his children, and is currently on bail of 120,00 euros.
In his confession on October 4, the former mayor of Yaiza had implicated up to six people, being especially explicit when referring to the lawyer Ignacio Díaz de Aguilar and the businessman José Francisco Riquelme. Regarding the first, legal representative of Las Coloradas S.A., he stated that "he personally gave him cash", not "remembering the amount", but "possibly about seven or eight million pesetas". As for Riquelme, representative of Papagayo Arena S.L. and Explotaciones Hoteleras Nueva Valencia, Reyes had stated before the judge that he gave him "cash". Both denied Reyes' accusations in court and even the first announced that he would file a lawsuit against the former mayor of Yaiza.
These two people, in addition to the businessmen Simón Camacho, Marcelo Machín, Joaquín Cañada and José Rafael Mesa, (who also denied before the judge having made payments to the former mayor of Yaiza) were charged after Reyes' statement, although he retracted a month after his confession, coinciding with his change of lawyer and with the "signing" for his defense of the lawyer Pablo Luna, who also represents the former mayor of Marbella, Marisol Yagüe, in the Malaya case.
Thus, the former mayor of Yaiza returned to the Arrecife Courts at his own request and tried to convince the judge that he invented his initial confession because he was "under pressure" and because he believed that he would free his wife and children, who are charged with money laundering, from prison. However, now the statement of a witness confirms some of the extremes admitted by himself during his first statement before the judge and the prosecutor.
The cause
Since its origin, this investigation tried to get to the bottom of the reasons that led the former mayor of Yaiza to grant more than 30 illegal licenses and extensions of other expired licenses between 1998 and 2003, which have come to be under suspicion of corruption. And Reyes authorized around 10,000 new tourist beds for hotels and apartments in the south of the island, going against the Island Plan of Lanzarote, the reports of the Cabildo and even the reports of the technicians of the City Council.
The process has been open for more than three years and included, in addition to José Francisco Reyes, the lawyer Felipe Fernández Camero, the secretary of the City Council, Vicente Bartolomé Fuentes, and Pablo Carrasco Cabrera, from the Technical Office of the Yaiza City Council, for alleged crimes of urban planning prevarication and bribery. The Public Prosecutor's Office considered that they were all part of a plot dedicated to the massive granting of illegal licenses in Playa Blanca.
In addition, Reyes' wife and three of his children, who were arrested along with the former southern mayor on September 30, and later released on charges, have also been charged in this case for alleged crimes of money laundering, following the report made by the Udyco, in which the assets of José Francisco Reyes and his environment were traced.
