The Provincial Court of Las Palmas will begin to judge on October 16 one of the pieces of the "Unión" case, in which the former Minister of the Government of the Canary Islands, Francisco José Rodríguez Batllori, and the former leader of the PIL Dimas Martín, are accused of allegedly stealing public funds from the Arrecife City Council and Inalsa.
The Court has already established this date to hold the trial, within a calendar that extends until November 21 over nine sessions. Some will be held in the Arrecife Courts, while the rest will take place at the main headquarters in Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, as confirmed by the Superior Court of Justice of the Canary Islands (TSJC).
The Court's panel will travel to Arrecife for the first five sessions to question the six defendants in this proceeding. These sessions will be on October 16 and 17. In addition, the first witnesses in the case, other public officials and technicians, will be questioned on October 20, 21 and 23.
Subsequently, the trial will continue from November 7 in Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, where another four sessions will be held.
Request for eight and six years in prison
This piece of the "Unión" case investigates the payment of invoices for allegedly unrendered work. Rodríguez Batllori faces a request for eight years in prison, while the Prosecutor's Office is asking for six years in prison for Dimas Martín, accused of influencing public officials of his party to pay those allegedly fraudulent invoices from the Arrecife City Council and the public company Inalsa.
The investigating judge and the Prosecutor's Office maintain that Rodríguez Batllori charged more than 43,000 euros from Inalsa and the Arrecife City Council, through bimonthly invoices, for services that he did not actually provide. According to the investigation, based among other things on the conversations recorded during Operation "Unión", in the letters intercepted between Dimas Martín and Batllori and in the confession of José Miguel Rodríguez himself, who was then the Finance Councilor of Arrecife, what was really being paid with that money were private services provided by Rodríguez Batllori to the historical leader of the PIL.
Along with Rodríguez Batllori and Dimas Martín, José Miguel Rodríguez, who confessed to the facts and for whom the Prosecutor's Office is asking for one year in prison, continues to be accused in this case; the former Councilor for Personnel and Internal Affairs, María Luisa Blanco; the former CEO of Inalsa, Plácida Guerra; and the former manager of Inalsa, Rafael Elorrieta Larrea. For these last three defendants, the Public Prosecutor's Office requests five years in prison.
