As soon as he left the Courts, Jesús Machín defended himself assuring that he was not the person who decided that the bathrooms should be made, but he does state "that they are necessary" and believes that "the population feels that way". The mayor has recognized that the location of the bathrooms "should have been defined in another way or have requested the relevant permits, which it seems was not done". He has also expressed his wish that the bathrooms not be demolished and states that if Justice finally decides to tear them down, "I ask that others be made as soon as possible".
Machín has explained before the judge instructing the case, Aurora María García Martínez, that it is true that there was an unofficial meeting in Los Dolores in which the suitability of the old pig pen of the santera who cared for the church was discussed, to build the new bathrooms, although only "it was said that it could be the most suitable area but it was not decided". Regarding the value of the land on which the bathrooms were built, Machín recognizes that "there may have been rock under the area, I don't know, but in the pig pen there was nothing because the neighbors themselves said so".
It was half past ten in the morning when Jesús Machín went to testify by judicial summons in the Court of Instruction No. 4, at the request of the prosecutor in the case, who requested his presence after one of the accused, the engineer head of the Technical Office of the Cabildo, José Manuel Fiestas Coll, assured the judge that it was Jesús Machín and Aquilino Romero, deputy mayor of Tinajo, who decided the location of the bathrooms. Now, according to Machín, the engineer has denied that he made that accusation. "He explained to me that he did not say exactly that I was the one who gave the permission, because he knows that I did not say that they should be made there".
Jesús Machín has also defended Dimas Martín, then president of the Cabildo and accused in the case, assuring that "if there is any work to applaud from Don Dimas, it is this. He did it with the best will", although he recognizes that "perhaps the forms were not correct" and that he himself did not know that the BIC that protects the solidified lava area, reached the bathrooms.
Jesús Machín and Aquilino Romero have been the last defendants in the case of the construction of the bathrooms in land protected by BIC declaration. Others involved, such as Dimas Martín, Mario Pérez, who replaced Martín as president of the Cabildo when he was imprisoned, and Sergio Machín, Minister of Public Works in 2003, the date of construction of the bathrooms, have already passed through the Arrecife Courts to testify. It is estimated that before the end of the year, the case will be ready for oral trial.
