The councilor of Alternativa Ciudadana (AC) in the Arrecife City Council, Domingo García, testified this Monday as an accused, after being denounced by the PSOE advisor, Cristian Caleri, for an alleged crime of continued slander and libel. García has insisted that the "rumor" that this advisor had bought a bicycle and was trying to pass the bill to the City Council was confirmed by the Councilor for Local Police and Youth, Jacobo Lemes, although he has not provided any evidence, since the bill "was not submitted to the Intervention Department" of the City Council, according to García himself in his statement.
The AC councilor has also referred to two other alleged witnesses, through whom this "rumor" reached him and to whom, according to García, Jacobo Lemes confirmed the same story. One of them is a Local Police officer, Narciso Pérez, and the other is a broadcaster from a local station, Pedro Martín. Narciso Pérez has been involved in several controversies with the Arrecife government group and is also one of the people who were evicted from the old houses of La Destila, after a long judicial process.
For his part, Pedro Martín was a PSOE councilor in Teguise and has been convicted of defrauding his former party of more than 5,000 euros. In addition, he is the owner of the parallel market of La Villa, which was closed a few months ago by the Teguise government group for being illegal.
In his statement, the AC councilor explained to the judge that these two people said "publicly" what Jacobo Lemes had supposedly told them about Caleri.
García explained that everything goes back to September 2013. After arriving from vacation, he gave an interview to a media outlet, where they asked him if he knew this rumor. The councilor replied that he did not know, but promised to investigate it. García went to the City Council and "as he did not have a specific person to ask", he met Lemes and asked him about the rumor.
According to the statement of the AC councilor, to which La Voz has had access, Lemes took him to his office and there he told him "that the rumor was true, that the plaintiff had gone to him, to his own office, with an invoice for the purchase of a bicycle, intending that the City Council pay the invoice". García has insisted that, apparently, "there was another invoice for the purchase of sports equipment and what was intended was to make the switch, that is, to pay one invoice for another".
"It had not gone any further"
García has assured that Lemes told him that he had spoken with Caleri, to whom he stated that he was not going to authorize the payment of the bicycle, nor of the invoices that had been presented for sports equipment, because they did not even depend on his department. The AC councilor has stated that he insisted to Lemes that he had to dismiss this advisor, but he replied that he was not an advisor of his party, but of his government partner, the PSOE.
Faced with this situation, the AC councilor requested from the City Council the list of invoices for a certain period between 2011 and 2012 for the purchase of sports articles. The Intervention Department of the Arrecife City Council replied that the invoices were "audited, had registration entries, but were pending payment" and the invoices were not "physically". Afterwards, according to his statement, García understood that "what the plaintiff had tried to do had not gone any further".
Therefore, according to the councilor, he considered the matter concluded, until Caleri's complaint reached him. García has preferred not to answer the questions of the PSOE advisor's lawyer and, before finishing his statement before the judge, he wanted to emphasize that "in no case" has he accused Caleri "of anything". In this sense, he has insisted that he only "limited himself to informing and monitoring the activity of the City Council.