Shortly after 9:10 a.m. this Tuesday, the mayors of Yaiza and Teguise, José Francisco Reyes and Juan Pedro Hernández, entered the Arrecife Courts to testify before the Court of First Instance and Instruction number 2 of Arrecife as defendants for alleged crimes of malfeasance, influence peddling, bribery and money laundering. Upon the departure of both councilors, who did not want to make any statement in this regard, it was the lawyer of the private prosecution, representing the Secretary of Organization of the PSOE Carlos Espino, who stated that both mayors have diverted "to specific people within the City Council of Teguise and Yaiza as responsible for granting this type of licenses that have been given against the Law".
The lawyer Irma Ferrer has announced that this statement, within the preliminary proceedings initiated after the Arrecife Prosecutor took charge of the complaint filed by the socialist Carlos Espino before the Provincial Brigade of the Judicial Police last November, "is only the beginning". The next people to be called to testify will be the secretary of the Technical Office of the Yaiza City Council, who according to the lawyer has been directly held responsible by the mayor Reyes and "the administrative staff in charge of drafting the decrees" in the Teguise City Council, civil servant personnel alluded to by the mayor of Teguise, Juan Pedro Hernández.
Both mayors, according to the version of the private prosecution, have stated that "they do not know about law and neither about urban planning" and that they simply signed "because the technicians said that everything was fine". Juan Pedro Hernández has maintained during the approximately 60 minutes that his statement lasted that "when the technicians put things to me to sign it is because I can sign, because everything is correct". Irma Ferrer has clarified that none of the two defendants wanted to answer her questions.
Silence of the mayors
Around 10:30 in the morning Juan Pedro Hernández, who was the first of the two defendants to testify, left the courts, with a serious face and accompanied by his lawyer, Marcial Francisco Hernández. Neither wanted to make any kind of statement.
For his part, the mayor of Yaiza, José Francisco Reyes, concluded his statement around 12:15 in the morning and left the Arrecife Palace of Justice through the back door in the direction of one of the cafeterias located in the surrounding streets.
At the end of the session, the Arrecife Prosecutor in charge of the case, since he was the one on duty when the proceedings were initiated for the complaint filed by Carlos Espino in November of last year, has declined to make statements so as not to hinder the procedure.
