"I am not aware that this is what I said", "I don't know if it was exactly like that", "I don't dare to affirm that this is what I said" and "I cannot assure that this is mine". Those were some of the phrases of the former councilor of Citizen Alternative in Arrecife, Domingo García, during the trial that took him to the stand this Tuesday, accused of a crime of slander.
The complaint against García was filed in 2013 by Cristian Caleri, who was then an advisor to the capital's City Council. At that time, Caleri's name had jumped to the media at the hand of Domingo García, who in several interviews named that advisor and spoke of an alleged attempt to "pass on" to the City Council an invoice for the purchase of a bicycle. During the trial, held by the Criminal Court Number 3 of Arrecife, Domingo García defended himself by stating that he only echoed "a rumor".
"I have not imputed absolutely anything to Cristian Caleri", "I said that we were investigating", "I always put it in conditional", the former mayor insisted, who refused to confirm if the statements published in two digital newspapers on those dates were his. In fact, he did not even recognize what he published on his own page of a social network. "It is supposed to be his Facebook page", the lawyer of the prosecution stated when showing him one of the texts. "You will suppose it!", Domingo García replied, who had several similar confrontations with the lawyer, even raising his tone.
Regarding what was published in at least two digital newspapers, García admitted that in his day he did not address them asking them to rectify, despite the fact that they put words in his mouth that he now claims he does not recognize. "I am with freedom of expression", he replied to the lawyer of the prosecution, when he asked him why he did not ask for that rectification. "I don't have to be auditing all the media on the island", he added when the lawyer insisted on this point, given that those media put phrases in quotation marks attributing them to Domingo García. "I don't go around looking where they get the information from", the former mayor insisted.
"The only thing certain is that a bicycle was bought"
"The only thing certain of everything that the accused said is that my client bought a bicycle", said the lawyer of the prosecution in his conclusions. And it is that effectively, Caleri has been explaining since then that in those dates he bought a bicycle for his personal use, which he paid out of his pocket. In fact, together with his complaint, the former advisor provided the documentation that proves that he has been paying it in installments.
For his part, Domingo García acknowledged during the trial that he never saw the invoice for that bicycle, neither inside nor outside the City Council. He didn't even know the name of the store where it was bought. And he didn't get any "concrete proof" that corroborated that the invoice had been tried to be charged to the City Council either. However, he went out talking about the issue in several interviews in the media, echoing according to him "a rumor", and without calling Caleri first to ask him, despite the fact that in the trial he confirmed that he even had his phone.
As a result of the statements made by Domingo García, the issue occupied space for months in radio talk shows, articles were published in the press and even a murga dedicated part of its lyrics to it in the Carnival. Even, according to Caleri, during a protest by workers from a subcontractor of Arrecife, he crossed paths with them and they reproached him for this issue. "They went after me, shouting at me to return the bicycle", he recalled.
For all this, he explained that the issue affected him "animically and morally and also on a personal level", when he repeatedly saw his name in the media, for events that were simply "a hoax", according to the prosecution. "My daughters asked me, my wife felt bad. I saw relatives and they told me that I had come out in a medium again", recalled the former advisor, who even left his post in the City Council and assures that he had to go to a specialist who prescribed medication to help him sleep, because he had trouble falling asleep, as stated in a medical report submitted to the case.
For those moral damages, the lawyer of the prosecution asks that Domingo García pay Caleri compensation of 10,000 euros. In addition, he demands for the former councilor a penalty of two years in prison. On this point, during the trial he stated that subsidiarily, in case of conviction, the prison sentence could be replaced by a fine of 21,600 euros (the Penal Code contemplates prison sentences or fines for this crime), leaving it to the discretion of the magistrate.
"I don't remember"
Another of the repeated phrases during the trial was "I don't remember". Domingo García used it on several occasions but, above all, one of the defense witnesses, Pedro Martín. This radio announcer, on whom there was already a firm conviction for defrauding more than 5,000 euros to his former party (the PSOE), was the one who told the former councilor about that "rumor" about the bicycle bill. During an interview on the radio, the announcer asked him about this issue, although he only spoke of "an advisor" and did not give his name.
"The defendant agreed with the journalist to find out and, without taking the necessary measures to contrast the information, a few days later, specifically on September 25, 2013, he stated in said radio space that the rumor was true and identified the plaintiff as the author of the events", Judge Jerónimo Alonso pointed out in the order in which he put an end to the instruction of this case, and in which he concluded that there were indications of a crime to bring Domingo García to trial, given that his statements "attacked the right to honor" of Cristian Caleri, "in as much as, openly, they refer to his participation in an illicit activity".
However, during the trial, both Domingo García and Pedro Martín assured that they did not remember that second interview, to which the judicial order referred and which was later collected in a digital newspaper of the same medium. "I cannot assure if he said it, I don't remember", Martín replied in his statement as a witness, when asked if it was the councilor who ended up giving Caleri's name on the radio. In fact, he did not even "remember" if he interviewed the then AC councilor a second time to talk about this issue again. And he could not clarify either if the transcription that was made of that interview in his digital medium corresponded "literally" with the statements of Domingo García. "I suppose so", he limited himself to pointing out.
Jacobo Lemes denies the version of the accused
For his part, Domingo García explained that after knowing this "rumor" he met with the then councilor of Local Police, Youth, Traffic and Parks and Gardens of Arrecife, Jacobo Lemes, and asked him about the issue. And then, according to García, the mayor took him to his office and told him that "the rumor was true". However, Lemes himself testified as a witness in the trial and denied having said that to the AC councilor, who was then in the opposition.
According to the statement of Jacobo Lemes, neither Cristian Caleri tried to "pass" the bicycle bill to the City Council, nor has he ever seen that bill, nor did he say that to Domingo García. In his day, after the issue jumped to the media, Jacobo Lemes already came out to deny it in two public interviews. "When Domingo García asked me, the issue had already come out in the press. I told him that it was false and that I had no idea what it was", the councilor declared in the trial.
Despite the fact that it was also raised during the instruction, the announcer Pedro Martín denied that Lemes had confirmed to him "off the air" that that alleged "rumor" was true. Who did assure to have spoken with Jacobo Lemes about this matter was the then delegate of personnel of the City Council, Narciso Pérez, who was the only one who during the trial confirmed the version of Domingo García and assured that Lemes had also assured him that the "rumor" of the bicycle bill was true. Even, he came to declare that Lemes showed him the bill, although he did not give it to him. "I suppose he imagined that as a delegate of personnel he could go to the courts", he replied when asked by the judge herself about whether he had asked him to hand it over.
A year without speaking
For his part, Jacobo Lemes not only denied having said that or shown any bill, but he assured that he had been almost a year without even speaking with Narciso Pérez. At that time, the official had several open fronts with the government group and in particular with this mayor, for different criticisms that he had launched in the media for his management.
During the trial, the official assured that he believes that two files that were opened to him later responded to possible "reprisals" for the statements he made about the issue of the bicycle bill, although the truth is that he had already had other previous files. Even, that same year he had been denounced by the City Council for an alleged crime of occupation of real estate, since he was one of the people who lived in the houses attached to the school of La Destila.
That criminal procedure was finally filed, but Narciso Pérez was finally evicted from the house, which was pending demolition in order to build the new educational center.
Mysterious appearance of a copy of the bill
During the instruction of this case for slander against Domingo García, Narciso Pérez came to provide an alleged copy of Caleri's bicycle bill. However, he did so when the defense of Cristian Caleri had already delivered that bill to the Court, when filing the complaint against García. Therefore, the document already appeared in the summary to which the defendant had access. "It is an identical copy to the one provided by this party", the lawyer of the prosecution underlined. Regarding the alleged stamp of the City Council that had the ticket presented in the Court by Narciso Pérez, the lawyer pointed out that it is a stamp of the Local Police, which is the department where he works.
In addition, he emphasized the circumstances in which Pérez supposedly had access to that copy of the bill. According to the official, it was left to him in an envelope in his name in "a room of the Personnel Board". "Is it usual for them to leave documents in such untimely places?", the lawyer asked him, after remembering that in another case , this same witness declared that he had "found documents in a garbage can".
Regarding the relationship that unites him to Domingo García, Narciso Pérez affirmed during the trial that it is "a normal relationship". "What does normal mean?", the lawyer of the prosecution asked him. "Of hello and goodbye", the witness replied. Faced with this answer, the lawyer reminded him that during the instruction, he had declared to be "friend" of Domingo García. "Friends say hello and goodbye", he replied when this possible contradiction in his testimony was raised.
"They try to mix invoices"
When presenting his conclusions in the trial, the lawyer of the prosecution argued that the defense of Domingo García has tried to "mix invoices", by referring to other different ones, from sports companies that have nothing to do with the store where the bicycle in question was bought.
In his statement, Domingo García affirmed that Jacobo Lemes spoke to him about "doubtful" invoices from a sports events store and that the auditor confirmed to him that "it is true that they were recognized and audited, but the invoices physically did not know where they were". However, those invoices are not from the purchase of the bicycle nor from the store where it was acquired.
To insist on this point, the defense called as witnesses the auditor of Arrecife, Carlos Sáenz, and an official who in that period served as accidental treasurer, Carmen Villaverde. However, in their statement neither of the two was asked about Caleri's bicycle bill, but about the procedure for registering invoices that existed then in the City Council. A procedure that has already been questioned in the corruption cases that splash the Arrecife City Council, and also in particular the auditor. But as for the bicycle bill, neither the technicians, nor the councilor of the area where they said it had been tried to "pass on", affirmed to have seen it even, nor does it appear in any registry or in the accounting system of the City Council.
"Say it that it stays there, and the wear occurs"
"We don't even know who the alleged invoice was tried to be passed on to. The accused tells us that to the Local Police, now Narciso Pérez says in his statement that to Tourism. The journalist says that he had heard the rumor but did not dare to say the name of my client on the radio", the lawyer of the prosecution exposed in his last intervention, in which he stated that Domingo García could have acted "seeking political gain" or the "wear of another party", since the former advisor belongs to the PSOE and he to Citizen Alternative.
"He didn't even call him by phone to contrast it before going out talking in the media. Say it that it stays there, and the wear occurs", the lawyer underlined. In addition, he insisted that Domingo García "does not recognize" now "anything that appears" in the news that was exhibited during the trial, "but curiously he did not request a rectification" to those media that put words in his mouth.
For his part, the defense lawyer concluded by insisting that Domingo García "has denied having said what is said in those statements or having said it like that and has denied having imputed a crime" to Cristian Caleri. "He spoke of rumors, of investigations. There is no objective imputation of a criminal act", he insisted, to defend that the former councilor did not incur in a crime of slander. In addition, he questioned the articles published in two digital newspapers and reproached the prosecution for not having provided the recordings of the radio interviews.
"They are mere photocopies extracted apparently from digital newspapers, which what they do according to the prosecution is to transcribe the alleged interviews", the lawyer affirmed, who came to qualify as "pseudodocuments" the copies of the articles published in those media, one of them property of the witness Pedro Martín.
It should be remembered that other media, including La Voz de Lanzarote, did not echo the initial statements of Domingo García, given that they implied the possible commission of a crime, and he himself acknowledged then to this medium that he had no proof of the statements he was making. Neither the former councilor nor the witness of his defense Narciso Pérez, who assured to have had later access to a copy of the bill, came to denounce never in the courts those alleged events and limited themselves to talking about the issue in the media.
Regarding the trial for slander against Domingo García, at the beginning of the hearing the judge clarified that the Prosecutor's Office was not present because in the trials for insults and slander, the Public Prosecutor's Office can only intervene when the aggrieved party is a public official, a circumstance that was not given in the case of Caleri. That is why only the private prosecution was present, in a trial that has already been seen for sentencing.
