"They are the first ones that came to mind." That was one of the explanations given this Wednesday by the former mayor of Yaiza, José Francisco Reyes, when retracting his initial confession and having to justify why he gave names and surnames of businessmen who supposedly would have given him money. And it is that when going back on his first statement, in which he admitted to having received money from several businessmen, linked to the granting of illegal licenses, that is one of the questions that remain in the air.
However, this explanation was not the only one. In a new statement marked by several contradictions, Reyes added that he cited those businessmen and not others because "he had the intention of saying names of people who were not from Lanzarote so as not to have to see them every day."
A second version that he later modified again, adding that he named those people not out of revenge, but because of "differences" with some of them, and to save his family. And it is that according to the former mayor of Yaiza, he became convinced that if he said some names, his wife and children, who were also arrested and are charged with money laundering, would not go to prison.
"Pressure and despair"
Reyes tried to justify this Wednesday before the judge that in the second statement he made after his arrest, he suffered "pressure and despair", and that what he said admitting the bribes and implicating several businessmen was false. Regarding them, he stated that he did not know the damage he did to them, and "that they are not to blame for anything."
In his new statement, he stated that when he was arrested, at the end of September, "he was with serious injuries, with the possibility of catching an infection, he heard his wife cough and his daughter Beatriz cry." However, he also acknowledged that medical assistance was never denied to him and that all his rights were read to him.
Contradictions
The former mayor of Yaiza declared that he wanted to apologize to those people and to the judge "for the time he has made her lose." When asked if he received visits in prison from lawyers of other defendants in the case, he replied that yes, he received "several lawyers from other defendants to talk about this." However, he immediately denied it on several occasions and said that he had not understood the question well.
To the questions of his new lawyer, Pablo Luna, Reyes acknowledged that he wrote a letter from prison in which he retracted his statement and gave it to this lawyer. He said that no lawyer of another defendant asked him to change his statement and that he modified it freely.
Does not answer
Reyes did not want to answer any of the questions from the lawyer of the prosecution, who asked him more than twenty questions. He did not want to explain the origin of the illicit money he has handled, nor how he contacted his current lawyer, nor justify the assets of his family, nor whether he knows the named businessmen and others.
The judge again ordered his provisional imprisonment. Reyes is charged with the crimes of money laundering, bribery, prevarication, embezzlement of public funds and influence peddling. His wife, three of his children, the businessmen Juan Francisco Riquelme, Ignacio Díaz de Aguilar, Joaquín Cañada, Marcelo Machín, Simeón Camacho and the lawyer Felipe Fernández Camero are also still charged in this case.
ACN Press
