Former Arrecife councilor Isabel Martinón has been charged in a second part of the Montecarlo case, for alleged embezzlement of public funds in payments to the company Tunera Producciones. Martinón was in charge of the Arrecife Finance Department between December 2009 and mid-2011, within the pact of her party, the PNL, with the PP and the PIL.
Since the beginning of the Montecarlo case, Martinón's name had appeared repeatedly. Even the Prosecutor's Office included her in the initial complaint that gave rise to this case, although until now she had not been charged. However, this week the judge has decided to call her to testify in two different cases. The first, as La Voz de Lanzarote reported this Tuesday, is the one investigating payments to Inelcon. The second, which is the one that has now come to light, is for the invoices paid to Tunera Producciones.
In both cases, the investigating judge and the Prosecutor's Office consider that the City Council paid invoices to these companies for years for work that had not actually been carried out. And some of those invoices were authorized by Martinón as head of Finance.
Summoned for April 18
In the Inelcon case, the judge has charged four other new people along with Martinón, while in the Tunera case it is only this former councilor who joins the list of defendants that already existed until now. "Being able to deduce from the proceedings that Doña Isabel Martinón could have had participation in the investigated events, register her as investigated and summon her to testify in that capacity on April 18 at 11:30 a.m.", states the order issued by Judge Ricardo Fiestas Gil.
"Investigated" is the new term that is now used to refer to the accused, after the modification of the Criminal Procedure Law approved in 2015 by the PP government. However, despite the change in name, the procedural situation that it implies for the affected party is the same.
In his order, the judge also summons "as investigated" other people who were already charged in this case, such as the Arrecife comptroller Carlos Sáenz, the former councilors Eduardo Lasso (PIL), Lorenzo Lemaur (PP) and Víctor Sanginés (PSOE) and the current mayor, José Montelongo, who was councilor of Finance when the events under investigation occurred. All of them must testify between April 4 and 5.
From PNL to Ciudadanos
Isabel Martinón was a councilor of Arrecife under the PNL banner in the 2007-2011 legislature, together with her then partner Pedro de Armas. The former councilor also became a candidate for the Senate in 2008 for this party, then united with Nueva Canarias. Previously, the former councilor had been part of Coalición Canaria, when the PNL was still within this formation.
In the 2011 elections, Martinón repeated as a candidate on the PNL list in Arrecife, but this time in third place, and did not enter the City Council as a councilor. Shortly after, she left the formation and announced that she would dedicate herself to her work as a lawyer.
However, she returned to politics when Ciudadanos began to establish itself in Lanzarote. Although she was part of the party's Board of Directors on the island, Martinón did not run in the last elections. In addition, for a month now she has not been part of that body either. The formation renewed its Board of Directors in February and Isabel Martinón was one of the three people who were left out, although she is currently still a member of the party.
All Finance Councilors Charged
With the new summonses ordered by the judge, in the Montecarlo case all the councilors who occupied the Finance Department during the period that is being investigated in this case, which goes from 2008 to 2011, have been charged, in one case or another.
The first Finance councilor in that period was José Miguel Rodríguez, of the Party of Independents of Lanzarote, who has already been convicted in the Unión case and is also charged in a part of Montecarlo. After Operation Unión and the expulsion of the PIL from the government group, he was followed for a few months in the position by the socialist Víctor Betancort, who has also been charged this week, but in the Inelcon case.
The next Finance councilor was Isabel Martinón, after the motion of censure that made Cándido Reguera mayor. And finally, in the legislature that began in 2011, José Montelongo began as Finance councilor, under an agreement between the PP and the PSOE in the capital, which did not finish that term. During most of the entire period investigated in the different parts of the Montecarlo case opened in Arrecife, the mayor was Cándido Reguera, who was also charged in the case, although he died during the investigation.
