The Prosecutor's Office has decided to appeal again the third degree of penitentiary granted to the leader of the PIL, Dimas Martín, who is currently serving an eight-year sentence for embezzlement of public funds and two crimes against the Public Treasury and Social Security for the case of the Teguise Agroindustrial Complex. This is the second time that the Public Prosecutor's Office has appealed this penitentiary benefit to the politician from Lanzarote.
Martín has been enjoying the third degree since December 16. That same month, the Prosecutor's Office decided to appeal again the third degree granted by the General Directorate of Penitentiary Institutions. The prosecutor considers that the necessary conditions for obtaining the benefit are not met because he has not yet served half of the imposed sentence.
The politician from Lanzarote entered prison in December 2006 to serve eight years, and a year later he was granted the third degree, which allowed him to go to prison only to sleep. He was also granted an extraordinary reduction of the sentence of ten months, which was also appealed.
The Prosecutor's Office appealed the decision of the Penitentiary Institutions to the Penitentiary Surveillance Court number 1 of the Canary Islands, which on April 9, 2008, issued a court order maintaining the third degree for Martín. The Public Prosecutor's Office did not accept the court order and appealed to the first section of the Provincial Court of Las Palmas, which did uphold the Prosecutor's Office's appeal on May 20, annulling the third degree.
The resolution of the Provincial Court became effective at the beginning of August, when the loss of the third degree was notified to the historical leader of the PIL, who recovered it again in December.
FOURTH SENTENCE
The Agroindustrial Complex case is Martín's fourth sentence, who had already been in provisional prison before, although he was not convicted of an alleged real estate fraud for the Los Cocoteros case in the late seventies.
The convictions have occurred for the Roger Deign case, in 1993, for bribery; for disobedience for the Guatiza bathing area, and for bribery in the purchase of the vote of a PP councilor from Arrecife in 1995. The Complex case is the longest sentence he has had to face.
ACN Press
