The judge of the Court of First Instance Number 2 of Arrecife, Ana Manella, has given five days to the private prosecution and the defenses of the Reyes case to respond to the document presented by the Public Prosecutor's Office, in which she raises the provisional conclusions of the case and requests the dismissal of the proceedings against the majority of the businessmen who had been charged in this procedure.
If this letter from the Prosecutor's Office is accepted, the case would continue with 14 defendants and would already enter the final stretch, to reach the trial. On the one hand, the accusation against the former mayor of Yaiza, José Francisco Reyes, and against four technicians of the City Council (Vicente Bartolomé Fuentes, Pablo Ramón Carrasco, Alfredo Morales and Antonio Lorenzo), for alleged continued crimes of urban planning prevarication, for the massive granting of illegal licenses in Playa Blanca. The case investigates tourist licenses that have already been annulled by the courts, as well as residential licenses in the case of the Playa Blanca Partial Plan, but also the Marina Rubicón marina.
In addition, the Prosecutor's Office considers that there are sufficient indications of a crime to maintain the accusation against José Francisco Reyes' wife, Antonia Rafaela Torres, and against three of his children (María Noelia, María Beatriz and Francisco Abel Reyes), for money laundering. Along with them, the Prosecutor's Office also requests that Simeón Camacho, Antonio Marcelo Machín, Benito Mesa Ferrer and Rafael Mesa Ferrer continue to be charged, for their alleged collaboration in carrying out that laundering, through the companies Acuimar Cachazo and Sea Sun Lanzarote.
More than one million euros in cash
The crime of money laundering was included in the case as a result of the investigation carried out at the time by the Organized Crime and Delinquency Unit (Udyco) of the National Police, which tracked the assets of José Francisco Reyes and his environment, and found expenses worth more than one million euros in a few years, with money of unknown origin. The purchases were made in cash, without any accounting entry in banking entities, nor has the family been able to justify the origin of the money, according to the prosecution.
Precisely for this reason, the Prosecutor's Office also requests to maintain the indictment for bribery against the former mayor of Yaiza, since the investigation maintains that he used his position to obtain different gifts and cash in exchange for the granting of illegal licenses. However, he requests that the proceedings against the businessmen who were charged for having paid those alleged bribes be dismissed. And it is that despite the numerous indications that led to his indictment, including a confession from Reyes himself in which he admitted to having received bribes, and from which he later retracted, there would not be sufficient evidence to prove those alleged payments.
In total, a dozen businessmen were charged in the case until now, among whom the owners of the Marina Rubicón marina, Juan Francisco Rosa, Rafael Lasso and Francisco Armas, stood out; as well as Francisco Riquelme, promoter of the Papagayo Arena hotel; Joaquín Cañada; Ignacio Díaz de Aguilar; José Carmelo González Clavijo; and three Basque businessmen (Félix Leceta, Ricardo Sánchez and José Ramón Olaberría) with interests in the Playa Blanca Partial Plan. For all of them, charged until now for alleged crimes of bribery, the partial and provisional dismissal is requested. Regarding the last businessman charged with bribery, Rafael Mesa Ferrer, the dismissal is also requested for this crime, although he continues to be charged with money laundering.
Regarding another of the main defendants in the case, the lawyer Felipe Fernández Camero, the prosecutor also requests that the charges for urban planning prevarication and bribery be dropped, although he maintains the accusation for an alleged crime of embezzlement of public funds.
