The president of the Cabildo, Pedro San Ginés, appeared before the media this Thursday to assess the latest writing from the Prosecutor's Office requesting the provisional dismissal of the criminal case for the seizure of Montaña Roja and assured that he is "calm", although he does not yet rule out having to sit in the dock.
"Am I going to sit in the dock? Well, it could be," San Ginés pointed out in his appearance. And it is that although the Public Prosecutor does not formulate an accusation, nor will the complainant, Club Lanzarote - which withdrew from the case after the agreement it negotiated with the president - the popular accusation, represented by the Podemos group in the Cabildo, may do so.
In this regard, San Ginés pointed out that he has "no doubt" that "the popular political accusation", as he has called it, "will in all probability request that the oral trial be opened as well". In any case, he added that now "the judge will decide that", if that indictment is finally presented. And it is that in that case, it would have to be assessed whether the case can go to trial only with the popular accusation, opening a debate similar to the one that arose in the Noos case with Infanta Cristina. In that procedure, that debate was resolved with the King's sister sitting in the dock, at the request of the popular accusation and against the criteria of the Prosecutor's Office.
He denies being linked to Alba's order, despite what the prosecutor says
As happened in that case, in the Montaña Roja case there has also now been a discrepancy between the investigating judge - who did see indications of a crime and initiated the procedure to bring San Ginés and three other people to trial - and the Prosecutor's Office, which at the time defended that order but has now requested the provisional dismissal of the proceedings.
The reason for this change of criteria, according to the prosecutor in his writing, focuses on the "impossibility of accusing" the one he points to as the "ideologue" of the seizure, that is, the external lawyer Ignacio Calatayud. In this case, both the investigating judge and the Prosecutor's Office saw indications to bring him to trial, but he was left out of the case thanks to an order issued by Judge Salvador Alba, who shortly before being removed from his position ordered the dismissal of the proceedings against Calatayud. And that, according to the Prosecutor's Office, makes it impossible to maintain the accusation against the other three investigated, who claim that they acted advised by this lawyer.
Despite the fact that this is expressly stated on page nine of the Prosecutor's Office's writing, San Ginés denied it this Thursday at the press conference, in which he began by once again attacking La Voz de Lanzarote, to whom he referred as the media that "once again advanced the news".
Thus, after denying that the change of criteria of the prosecutor has to do with Alba's order acquitting Calatayud, nor with the agreement that San Ginés himself negotiated with Club Lanzarote so that it would withdraw from all the lawsuits, the president has attributed this turn only to the fact that "the truth and justice have prevailed". "And the Prosecutor's Office has ended up seeing it," he added. Thus, according to the president, there is no new element that justifies the prosecutor having now requested the dismissal, despite the fact that last October, with the investigation already closed, the same prosecutor opposed San Ginés' appeal, stating that there were "sufficient indications" of a crime to bring him to trial.
The withdrawal of Club's accusation, a "logical consequence of the agreement"
Regarding the withdrawal of the private prosecution, the president has acknowledged that it was a "logical consequence of the agreement" that he negotiated with Club Lanzarote. An agreement that was supposedly intended to put an end to the lawsuits opened with this company, but that has also ended up influencing the criminal case against San Ginés, as different opposition parties had warned would happen, when denouncing the "obscurantism" with which that agreement was negotiated.
"I was, I am and I will be calm, even sitting in the dock", San Ginés has affirmed, in reference to the possibility that he will end up going to trial if the popular accusation continues the case. In addition, he has dedicated a good part of his appearance to attacking the opposition and in particular against his former government partner, the PSOE, stating that they have made "a fool of themselves" with this issue.
"Some are seeing their joy in a well", San Ginés has affirmed, who considers that this cause has been talked about "almost as if the greatest criminal on this island were being judged". "I am the most investigated and reported president in the history of democracy", he has come to affirm, adding that for the moment he has "no conviction".
However, he has acknowledged that he was "wrong" to order the seizure of Club Lanzarote's plants, without a court order and without having a single written report to support it, to hand them over to Canal Gestión, which in turn had hired the lawyer who advised him to adopt that measure, Ignacio Calatayud. "I may have been wrong, it seems so. But what is unequivocal is that I did it believing that what I did could be done, because I was advised to do so", he defended, insisting that "from that point of view it is impossible" for him to be convicted of prevarication.
