The Criminal Court will hold the oral hearing of the trial against the former mayor of Yaiza for the PNL-NC, José Francisco Reyes, this Monday at 10:30 a.m., who will be in the dock accused of an alleged crime of urban prevarication related to the granting of another illegal license during the controversial term of said mayor.
The accusation was raised by the Prosecutor's Office in June 2006, and is related to the authorization of renovation works on a house for use as a bar-restaurant, on García Escámez street in the southern municipality, on rustic land, without the corresponding permits from the Cabildo. In this case, the prosecutor considers that Reyes incurred in the crime of urban prevarication, for which he requests 10 years of disqualification and a fine.
It is the first time that the southern mayor is being prosecuted criminally and before a complaint from the Public Prosecutor's Office, since although other times - as in the famous case of the wall - he has been involved in criminal proceedings, it was in the preliminary proceedings phase. This time, on the contrary, he must submit to an oral trial at the request of the Environmental Prosecutor's Office, which is the only party that is prosecuting in this procedure.
This will probably be the first of the trials that the former mayor of Yaiza will have to face this year, since it should be remembered that the Public Prosecutor's Office requested [for Reyes 9 years of disqualification in addition to fines for another concession of licenses on rustic land in this case in Femés->7830]
The crux of the matter in both cases is that the construction licenses in question were granted, as stated by the Prosecutor's Office, on land considered rustic by the Island Planning Plan, but the City Council acted as if the PIO did not exist and based its entire administrative procedure on the Yaiza General Plan of 1973, which considered these plots as developable land. The PIO, obviously, is above any municipal regulations regarding territorial planning, but the southern Consistory acted as if that island instrument did not even exist
The Special Environmental Prosecutor's Office of the Superior Court of Justice of the Canary Islands (TSJC) found in both cases sufficient evidence to consider that Reyes had incurred in urban prevarication and a continued crime against territorial planning, due to the delivery of construction licenses on rustic land.
Finally, it should be remembered that José Francisco Reyes is being investigated through criminal proceedings for two other cases. One of them for the authorization he granted [on December 12, 2006 to build a large residential complex, Costa Roja,->10774] in the north of Playa Blanca, where the construction of 1,012 homes, 220 commercial premises and more than 2,500 parking spaces was planned. It was La Voz de Lanzarote that made public the license that the mayor kept hidden even from the councilors of the corporation, who learned through the press of the permit for that enormous project.
The last of the criminal cases against the former mayor of Yaiza has to do with the massive granting of illegal tourist licenses for which said mayor authorized around 10,000 new tourist beds in the south of the island, going against even the municipal reports themselves, being this the most serious case that is being followed against the former mayor in which possible crimes of money laundering, bribery, prevarication and influence peddling are being investigated and which has led the Court of Instruction to even [order that the assets of José->15772] Francisco Reyes be investigated. In both cases, the investigations continue their course.