"Dimas, sorry, I know you're not up for these issues, but I'm desperate and I have no one to turn to." This phrase is part of one of the letters that put the UCO on the trail of the former Minister of the Canary Islands Government, Francisco Rodríguez Batllori, who from this Thursday will be in the dock in the first trial of the "Unión" case.
The agents found these letters when Operation Unión had already started. In fact, it was in the records of the first wave of arrests when they came across this new front, discovering an epistolary triangle between Rodríguez Batllori, Dimas Martín and the then Councilor of Finance of Arrecife, José Miguel Rodríguez.
At that time, Dimas did not hold any public office and was in prison, serving a sentence for embezzlement of public funds. And it was in his cell in Tahíche where some of these letters were found, and even an invoice that Batllori intended to charge to the Arrecife City Council, for allegedly unperformed work. "See, then J.M.R. (José Miguel Rodríguez), to whom I gave this month's invoice, told me that you had told him to stop with the last one, to divert it elsewhere. I don't care, but I want to insist that this month is absolutely essential for me", Batllori told Dimas, recounting the economic problems he was going through.
"Characters appear who come in your name"
This and other letters showed that the former Canarian Minister resorted to Dimas so that the Arrecife City Council - and other public administrations governed by the PIL - would pay him invoices for alleged services that even the councilor who had to authorize the payments did not know about.
"Every time they take you out of circulation, some characters appear who come in your name and I want you to tell me how to act", José Miguel Rodríguez in turn told Dimas in a letter, referring to a visit he had received from Batllori. "He was in my office today, supposedly sent by you (…) He left me an invoice for 3,500 euros for the services provided by him. In this regard, I told him that I would contact you and that therefore it would take a few days to be able to give you an answer", the councilor explained to Dimas.
When questioned about this issue, José Miguel Rodríguez himself confessed before the judge that such services were not provided to the Arrecife City Council, admitting that they incurred in an alleged embezzlement of public funds by making those payments.
For his part, Rodríguez Batllori assures that he did provide services for both Arrecife and Inalsa, for which he charged about 3,500 euros per month (one month from each of the two institutions), although he acknowledges that he did not have any type of contract. However, the investigation carried out by the UCO maintains that what was paid with those invoices was, in any case, the private arrangements that Batllori made for Dimas Martín.
"Give him a hand as far as you can"
"Paco Batllori, you know how he is, he sells more than he gets. There is no doubt that he has his contacts, but he is heavy as a stone and I fear that the case they make for him is null. Give him a hand as far as you can", Dimas replied to José Miguel Rodríguez in another letter, when he asked for instructions on what to do with the invoice that the former Canarian Minister had presented to him.
In addition to being a lawyer and Minister of Employment, Rodríguez Batllori was Deputy Minister of Justice of the Canary Islands Government. Regarding his "contacts", Batllori himself spoke of them in the letters he sent to Dimas, referring to his "friendship" with senior officials of the Constitutional Court and the Superior Court of Justice of the Canary Islands.
One of those letters was found in Dimas Martín's cell and the other in José Miguel Rodríguez's office, since Dimas had forwarded it to the councilor with another handwritten note: "As you can see, I am everyone's crying towel. See what you can do, deep down I feel sorry for him", he told him in this regard.
And it is that in that letter, Batllori told Dimas details about his personal life, his economic problems and the debts he was dragging. "Anyway Dimas, sorry for venting to you, but you are the only friend I can count on. Therefore I beg you to see what you can do, because once this issue is resolved I will not bother you anymore. Of course, it is essential that both Inalsa and Arrecife deposit the money before the 10th of each month, because if not the ball becomes absolutely unbearable for me", he concluded, saying goodbye with a: "I assure you that I will never fail you and that you can always count on me for whatever it is".
Arrangements for the third degree and the preparation of a book
Regarding the issues in which Batllori was supposedly mediating, the police and judicial investigation points out that they responded to private arrangements for Dimas, especially in relation to his prison situation, since at that time he was trying to obtain the third degree of penitentiary. In fact, that is one of the topics they talked about the most in the letters intercepted by the UCO, in which Batllori gave Dimas an account of the alleged arrangements he was making to help him achieve it.
In addition, there are also several references to a book that apparently a journalist from Gran Canaria was going to write, and that they also intended to have the then Councilor of Finance of Arrecife "take care of". "I was with J.M.R. (José Miguel Rodríguez) and he told me that you had not indicated anything to him, that he would contact you while waiting for your instructions", Batllori told Dimas Martín, explaining that the journalist was "waiting for what you say and to set up the best possible operation to see you".
"Tell me what I should do in this regard", José Miguel Rodríguez asked Dimas in another letter talking about this matter. "It is a book that we are going to write that can be very interesting, I will talk to you about that more calmly", Dimas replied.
The journalist that Batllori was putting in contact with Dimas and who was supposedly going to write that book was Francisco Chavanel, who has now just been sued by prosecutor Ignacio Stampa for attacking his honor repeatedly during the last five months, both in his radio program and in several articles published in the newspaper Canarias 7, trying to discredit his work and that of other judges and prosecutors in different corruption cases, especially in the Unión case and the Stratvs case, with alleged slander and insults about his professional activity and his personal life.
The trial begins with six defendants
The letters intercepted by the UCO, the subsequent police and judicial investigation and a complaint filed by the trade unionist and member of Alternativa Ciudadana Andrés Barreto, which brought to the Courts other allegedly fraudulent invoices paid by Inalsa to Rodríguez Batllori, led to the opening of a separate piece within the "Unión" case, which will be the first of this macro-case to go to trial.
The hearing will begin this Thursday in Arrecife with six defendants, accused of various crimes of fraud, in competition with embezzlement and prevarication, for having participated in the payment of invoices for allegedly unperformed work both from the Arrecife City Council and from Inalsa. Batllori is also accused of document forgery, for which the Prosecutor's Office asks for the highest penalty: eight years in prison.
Along with him, Dimas Martín will be in the dock, for whom prosecutor Javier Ródenas is asking for six years in prison; the former CEO of Inalsa, Plácida Guerra, and the former manager of Inalsa, Rafael Ellorieta, for whom five years in prison are requested; as well as the former councilors of Arrecife Luisa Blanco and José Miguel Rodríguez. For Blanco, the Prosecutor's Office also asks for five years in prison, while for Rodríguez it reduces the request for a sentence to one year in prison, considering as mitigating circumstances his confession, his collaboration with the investigation and the fact that he has already returned the money that he allegedly contributed to embezzle in this case.
