The treasurer of Arrecife, Antonio Cabrera Panasco, is once again awaiting the decision of the judge in the Montecarlo case. The magistrate agreed on January 12 to dismiss his indictment as he saw "no criminal intent" in his actions, but now the City Council's lawyer has appealed that decision. "It is not in accordance with the law and is also detrimental and harmful to the interests of my client," argues the document presented by the City Council's lawyer, who asks that the free dismissal be annulled and a provisional dismissal be agreed (which would leave the door open to re-indict him).
The City Council is a party as a private prosecutor in both the Unión case and the Montecarlo case, although until now no specific actions have been taken to appeal court orders or judicial decisions within these proceedings. In fact, in the Unión trials held so far, the City Council has adhered to the Prosecutor's Office's indictments and has focused its intervention on demanding the return of the embezzled money.
In this case, however, it has decided to appeal the dismissal of an indictment. Its appeal is the only one that has been filed against that order, since the Public Prosecutor's Office reported in favor of the dismissal. In fact, the Prosecutor's Office's criterion has always been against the indictment of the Arrecife treasurer, which was first raised by the mayor's defense, José Montelongo. Specifically, according to the judge's latest order, Montelongo's defense made "recommendations" for Cabrera Panasco to testify as an accused and not as a witness.
Did not oppose the dismissal
When a few months ago the treasurer asked for the case against him to be dismissed, the City Council's defense did not oppose or comment. Now, the City Council has filed an appeal after learning of the order. Specifically, it asks that the free dismissal agreed by the judge be annulled and replaced by a provisional dismissal. The difference between the two figures is that the first implies a definitive dismissal and the second does not.
In the case of free dismissal, it is issued when the evidence that justified the indictment at the time disappears and it is proven that there is no crime. As for the second, it implies that this evidence persists, but the investigation has not provided sufficient elements to maintain the indictment, and the door is left open to reopen it if new evidence arises.
In this regard, it should be recalled that the judge's order was forceful. "No criminal intent can be inferred if the executor of payments only knows the payment order and not the rest of the documentation," the magistrate pointed out. In addition, he added that "when he has had data", Cabrera Panasco "has expressed his disagreement", both to the councilor for Finance when the invoices that are being investigated were paid, José Montelongo, and to the then mayor, Cándido Reguera. He even put "his refusal in writing" to make certain payments that he understood violated the law. For its part, the Prosecutor's Office stressed that in his statement, Cabrera Panasco provided "very illustrative" documentation on the way in which some of the payments investigated in this case were authorized.
They ask that an expert testify first
The document presented by the City Council's lawyer refers to an expert report incorporated into the case, from the General Intervention of the State, which detected irregularities in 124 Inelcon invoices, which totaled more than 2.2 million euros. In that report, in addition to pointing to the auditor, "incriminating statements were also made against the treasurers of the Arrecife City Council".
However, there were up to three officials who served as treasurers in that period and only Cabrera Panasco's indictment was requested, who, according to the Prosecutor's Office and the investigating judge, was precisely the one who did make warnings when he became aware of possible irregularities. And Carmen Villaverde also made them, according to her statement in the Courts. Villaverde is another of the officials who served as auditor, although in her case she testified in this case as a witness.
According to the City Council's lawyer, "it is completely incomprehensible" that the free dismissal for Cabrera Panasco has been agreed without first calling the expert to testify. In this regard, it should be recalled that the judge already assessed that request when Montelongo raised it, who was the only one who presented a document with "considerations" after the treasurer's request for dismissal. However, when issuing his order, the magistrate considered that it was not necessary for the expert to testify, given that he had already expressed his conclusions in his report. "This treasurer, of the three who acted with respect to Inelcon and Señalcon, is not the one who could be suspected of facilitating irregular payments to such companies," the magistrate warned.
A "hasty" order, according to the City Council
The City Council's document refers to what happened with one of the pieces of the Unión case, where the treasurer was also initially charged. Cabrera Panasco himself presented in the Montecarlo case the order in which the dismissal of the proceedings against him was agreed in that piece, where "similar, if not identical, facts" were being investigated. In this regard, the City Council emphasizes that in that case the provisional dismissal was issued and not the free dismissal, which is the same thing it asks to happen now, because the opposite "would make it impossible" for the City Council to later "exercise any criminal action against Mr. Cabrera Panasco".
It should be noted that the Unión piece to which it refers is the one that was tried last November and in which a sentence has just been handed down, condemning the auditor, Carlos Sáenz, the former head of the Technical Office, Rafael Arrocha, the then councilor for Finance, José Miguel Rodríguez, and the owner of Proselan, José Daniel Hernández. In that case, the City Council was also a party, but did not file charges against the treasurer. In fact, in the trial Cabrera Panasco testified as a witness for the Prosecutor's Office
During the hearing, the treasurer of Arrecife explained that in the case of the Proselan invoices, as in many others, he was only given "the last sheet, the payment order, because all the others were removed". According to him, until 2008 the payment orders arrived "more complete", but in that year they did not send him the files, only that last document, which is the one that obliges him to make the payment. One of the accused (now convicted) in that trial was the auditor, Carlos Sáenz, who in turn is the main accused in the Montecarlo case. "I think our treasurer is constantly arguing," Sáenz said during that trial, when prosecutor Ignacio Stampa expressly asked him about the role of the treasurer of the Arrecife City Council and whether he had "argued" the payment of those invoices.