The searches carried out in the home and offices of businessman Luis Lleó within the "Unión" case allowed an important boost to a previous case, the Costa Roja case, adding new crimes and defendants in relation to the license granted by the former mayor, José Francisco Reyes, to build more than 1,000 homes, 2,559 garages and 228 commercial premises on that plot. However, months after opening that route, the Court of Instruction Number 3 of Arrecife has had to close it.
The reason is that the searches that were carried out in 2009 in Lleó's house and offices had to be annulled, due to a failure in the judicial investigation of the "Unión" case. Specifically, the judge's order authorizing the search was not in the summary and although it appeared three months ago, it was not duly motivated. This is assumed by the Las Palmas Environment Prosecutor's Office itself, which has renounced using the evidence obtained in those searches.
This decision will not affect the cause that originated the searches, the Unión case, since apart from the material seized by the UCO, there is sufficient evidence to maintain the accusation against Lleó for the alleged attempted bribery of Carlos Espino. However, it has harmed the initial cause for the license that José Francisco Reyes granted to Lleó.
Fernández Camero and Rafael Entrena Cuesta
Until a few months ago, the former mayor of Yaiza, José Francisco Reyes, the secretary, Vicente Bartolomé Fuentes, and the head of the Technical Office, Antonio Lorenzo Tejera, were charged in that procedure, all of them for alleged crimes of urban planning prevarication in the granting of the license. However, after incorporating the documents and emails that the UCO seized in the "Unión" case into the case, the Costa Roja judge ordered new charges. Among them, those of Luis Lleó himself, the lawyer Felipe Fernández Camero and the prominent professor and jurist Rafael Entrena Cuesta.
The three were charged last March with alleged crimes of prevarication, fraud against the administration and embezzlement of public funds, based on emails that have now had to be removed from the case. In those emails, it was highlighted that Lleó himself gave instructions to the jurist Rafael Entrena to prepare a report that would support the Costa Roja license. However, who paid for that report was the Yaiza City Council, which paid 27,000 euros.
According to the Prosecutor's Office, the professor's report was an "absolute farce" to support the license that the City Council had already granted to Lleó for the basic project of the work; to justify the execution license that was granted days after receiving this report, and also to give arguments to the defense of Reyes and two technicians, who had been charged with these facts. Now, the emails that highlighted these facts cannot be used in the case, as the searches of Luis Lleó's house and offices have been annulled.
Thus, while the investigation fails to provide other evidence to prove these facts, the charges against Lleó, Fernández Camero and Entrena Cuesta will be without effect, and also the new crimes that were charged to the former mayor and the secretary of Yaiza. And it is that José Francisco Reyes and Vicente Bartolomé Fuentes were also charged last March with alleged crimes of prevarication, fraud against the administration and embezzlement in relation to the payment of that Entrena Cuesta report.
Now, Reyes and Bartolomé Fuentes (together with the head of the Technical Office) must answer only for the crime of urban planning prevarication, which was the one initially charged to them for the granting of the license.
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