He has been sentenced to almost 40 years of disqualification in four different cases, but the former secretary of the Yaiza City Council, Vicente Bartolomé Fuentes, has now started working in the Cabildo of Gran Canaria. Although his hiring took place at the end of 2017, it has only now been made public and has unleashed a controversy on that island, for which explanations have been demanded from the government group.
As in other similar cases that have already occurred in Lanzarote, the key is that the conviction did not disqualify him from holding any public office, but only the one he held when he committed the crimes, that is, the one of secretary with national qualification. Thus, Bartolomé Fuentes has joined the Gran Canaria Cabildo as a management technician, after being in first place in the public call that the institution opened to create a reserve list of places.
"The judgments of 2017 and 2013 disqualify him from holding the public office of secretary of town councils, therefore he can apply for this position as a management technician. Furthermore, we could not exclude him because he could sue the Cabildo because he is within his rights," argued the Minister of Human Resources of the Cabildo of Gran Canaria, María Isabel Santana, in statements collected by the newspaper La Provincia. This is how she responded to the criticisms that the Popular Party had launched, after the national digital newspaper merca2.es echoed this situation.
Removed as secretary since 2013
The competition to which Vicente Bartolomé Fuentes applied, who was removed from the Yaiza City Council after his first final conviction, was announced more than a year ago, and the former secretary was in first place. As the councilor has revealed, in July 2017 they already detected that there could be an incompatibility, but they made a consultation with the Legal Services and concluded that the final judgments against him did not affect his possibility of participating in that public call. Thus, in September 2017 he joined the Cabildo of Gran Canaria, despite the convictions he has behind him for crimes of urban planning prevarication and embezzlement of public funds.
The first conviction of Vicente Bartolomé Fuentes was for issuing favorable reports to the construction of nine chalets located between Las Breñas and Femés, despite being aware that it was rustic land where it could not be built. The events occurred in 1999 but the final conviction did not arrive until 2013, which was when he was finally removed from the City Council to serve a sentence of 5 years of disqualification. In addition, that same year he had been imposed another conviction for similar events with other residential licenses, but the ruling was annulled due to a formal defect in the first sentence.
In December 2016, the former secretary was again sentenced to one year and 7 months in prison and 9 years and 3 months of disqualification for the licenses granted for 66 villas in the Playa Blanca Partial Plan. The beneficiary of these licenses was Pedro de Armas, party colleague of the then mayor, José Francisco Reyes, who was also convicted in this case.
Confessed in the Yate case
To this conviction was added in April 2017 that of the Yate case, in which the former secretary also confessed the crimes for which he was accused and accepted an agreement of conformity with the Prosecutor's Office, for which he was imposed one year in prison and 10 more years of disqualification. In this case, Vicente Bartolomé Fuentes acknowledged having issued favorable reports to the Marina Rubicón marina and the Playa Blanca Partial Plan knowing that they were illegal, and also acknowledged having contributed to embezzling public money from the City Council.
Finally, the former secretary was again convicted last January within the Stratvs case, in which he was imposed 14 years of disqualification for a crime of prevarication and another against land management, by contributing to the granting of an illegal activity license to the winery of Juan Francisco Rosa.
In addition, he still has other trials pending for cases that are already closed, as well as new procedures that have begun to be instructed and in which his name also appears. The last one has just begun as a result of a complaint from the Podemos group in the Cabildo for the occupation of public green areas in Playa Blanca, by hotels such as the Princesa Yaiza, also owned by the businessman Juan Francisco Rosa.
