The popular accusation in the Stratvs case, represented by the association Transparencia Urbanística, has already presented its indictment, which includes more crimes, greater penalties and a new defendant with respect to the qualification of the Environmental Prosecutor's Office, which was known last March. In its writing, registered this Wednesday, the association adheres both to the account of the facts and to the majority of the penalties requested by the prosecutor, but extends the accusation by introducing some facts that it also considers criminal.
In the case of the main defendant, Juan Francisco Rosa, the popular accusation asks for him 21 years in prison, that is, six more than those requested by the Prosecutor's Office. The reason is that it formulates an accusation for new crimes, in addition to those already included by the prosecutor in his writing. According to the popular accusation, the businessman also incurred in three alleged continued crimes of influence peddling, two of them in competition with crimes of malfeasance and the third in competition with crimes of document forgery. And it is that it maintains that all the politicians and officials accused in the case acted "influenced" by Rosa, who benefited both from illegal permits and alterations in the Cadastre, as well as from the passivity of the institutions in the face of the illegalities that he was committing with this work.
"The authorization, construction, opening, commissioning and exploitation (of Stratvs) for almost ten years despite the evidence of illegality, would never have been possible without the continued exercise of homage of officials and authorities to the power of influence of Mr. Rosa", the popular accusation points out. "If for the Public Prosecutor's Office, Stratvs represents the greatest environmental crime committed since the declaration of Lanzarote as a Biosphere Reserve, for the Transparencia Urbanística association Stratvs is the physical representation of the shameful submission of the rule of law to the power of money", he adds.
In its writing, the association points out that these continued crimes of influence peddling would have begun in 1998, when the winery received the first permits from the Government of the Canary Islands, and continued until finally the Justice had to close all the facilities in December 2013, ordering precautionary measures within this cause. For each of these new crimes, he asks for two more years in prison.
There will be 17 on the bench
Transparencia Urbanística also extends the accusation against one more person, Juan César Muñoz Sosa, who was general director of Urban Planning of the Government of the Canary Islands when the first permit was granted to the winery. Muñoz was charged in the case and even the judge pointed him out in the order in which she concluded the investigation, seeing indications of a crime to bring him to the dock. However, the Prosecutor's Office had requested the "partial provisional dismissal" of the proceedings against him in its indictment, because it considers that there are "reasonable doubts" about whether or not he was aware of the illegality of the permit he granted.
Although Muñoz Sosa ignored negative reports when authorizing the permit, the Prosecutor's Office considers that he also had positive opinions, so the responsibility would fall only on those two technicians. However, the popular accusation maintains that Muñoz "has a long and extensive professional career that, together with a first-class urban planning training, make it impossible to ignore his full knowledge about the illegality of the resolution he dictates, and inexcusable his ignorance by virtue of the literal wording of the authorization granted".
In addition, he will try to defend in the trial that Muñoz was not only aware of the illegality of the permit, but that he played a decisive role in its granting. In this regard, he recalls that until Stratvs requested that authorization, the Canarian Government was denying all requests to expand wineries in La Geria. And they continued to deny them afterwards.
"The same technicians who said no, said yes", argues the popular accusation, which considers that the "change" could be precisely in the political leader, since when Muñoz left the position, other similar permits were denied in La Geria. Even, in the case of who was the head of Services of the General Directorate of Urban Planning of the Government of the Canary Islands, Faustino García Márquez, first reported against the authorization of the Stratvs winery and then issued a favorable report, "without justifying in any way the radical change of criteria, for which he used the same factual and legal arguments as to deny it".
For that reason, in addition to formulating the same accusation as the Prosecutor's Office against the technicians, the popular accusation also requests a fine of 27,000 euros and 12 years of disqualification for employment or public office related to this crime for Juan César Muñoz, because he understands that it was a political decision.
In addition, he considers it "incredible" that the need to preserve the landscape was put as an "excuse" to authorize the work. In this regard, the popular accusation considers that one thing is the vine and its cultivation, which is what shapes La Geria, and another is the industry, which does not have to be within that landscape allowing new constructions with the excuse of its conservation.
New crimes for Reyes and two officials
In addition, the former mayor of Yaiza, José Francisco Reyes; the former secretary, Vicente Bartolomé Fuentes; and the surveyor of the Technical Office, Pablo Carrasco, also face accusations for new crimes. In the case of Reyes, to the crimes of malfeasance that the Prosecutor's Office already charged him with, the popular accusation adds another of malfeasance by omission, for which he asks for another year in prison and 14 more of disqualification. In total, the former mayor would thus face a request for eight years in prison.
In addition to having granted an illegal permit and a subsequent extension, the popular accusation considers that Reyes did not act when he was aware that Rosa was not even adjusting to what was authorized in that license. In fact, the works began when the permit had already expired and the execution project had not even been presented (what was built had nothing to do with what had been authorized, which was a winery of 900 meters, when what was carried out was a macro-complex of more than 12,000).
In 2003, the Yaiza City Council opened a file and even the mayor signed a decree ordering the suspension of the works, but there is no record that the works actually stopped. In fact, two years later the same Reyes even granted an extension of the first license (expired since the works began), thus giving a supposed coverage to the works that had been carried out. For that reason, the popular accusation considers that that decree of paralysis that the mayor signed in 2003 was only "wet paper", to cover the file before a writing that had been presented in the City Council denouncing these works.
As for Vicente Bartolomé Fuentes and Pablo Carrasco, the popular accusation asks for them two more years in prison than the Prosecutor's Office asked for, accusing them of a new crime of fraud against the administration, related to the fees and taxes that the Yaiza City Council charged Juan Francisco Rosa, and that he understands that they did not correspond to what the businessman should have actually paid.
In total, Carrasco faces a request for 7 years in prison and 24 years of disqualification, given that he also twice reported favorably to the granting of licenses to Stratvs. As for Bartolomé Fuentes, who was already removed from his position as secretary by a previous conviction, the accusation asks for a total of 3 and a half years in prison for him and disqualification of 18 years. And it is that although the secretary reported against the Stratvs building permit, he later reported favorably to the granting of the classified activity license that allowed its opening.
