The Court of First Instance Number 2 of Arrecife, which for seven months has been in charge of Leticia Esther Mateo Requena, is also facing a new change of judge. It is another consequence of the decision adopted last Tuesday, April 19, by the General Council of the Judiciary, which assigned new judges to 15 courts in the Canary Islands, including not only the one that initiated the "Unión" case, but also the one that is investigating the "Reyes" case.
Thus, the other major case against corruption opened in Lanzarote, which investigates the existence of an alleged organized network for the granting of illegal licenses in Playa Blanca, will now pass to Judge Ana Manella González, who this Wednesday has sworn her position and next week will join this Lanzarote court.
In this way, the "Reyes" case is changing hands again for the second time in seven months. In September, the judge who was investigating this case, María Dolores García Benítez, left the Court of First Instance Number 2 of Arrecife, after obtaining a place in a new destination, specifically in Ciudad Real. Since then, Leticia Mateo took over the Court as a substitute judge (and therefore the "Reyes" case), but now she will also have to leave it.
Five years of investigation
Thus, a new judge will be in charge of this case, whose investigation began almost five years ago, and which has about thirty defendants among politicians, technicians, businessmen, lawyers and relatives of the former mayor of Yaiza, José Francisco Reyes.
In September 2009, this case took a huge leap after the arrest of the former mayor of Yaiza, his wife and three of his children. In his statement before the judge and the Public Prosecutor, Reyes admitted that he had received money for granting illegal licenses, and gave the names of several businessmen, who became defendants in this judicial process.
However, the former mayor retracted his initial confession. The former mayor spent two months in provisional prison after his arrest, and since December 2009 he has been released on bail of 120,000 euros.
The "Reyes" case shares several defendants with the "Unión" case, including the former mayor himself, businessmen such as Juan Francisco Rosa and Francisco Armas, and the lawyer Felipe Fernández Camero, whom the Prosecutor's Office identifies as the "inducer of the allegedly criminal conduct of José Francisco Reyes".
RELATED NEWS
[The General Council of the Judiciary rejects the extension of the commission of services and leaves Romero Pamparacuatro out of the "Unión" case->53156]
