The treasurer of the San Bartolomé City Council, Luis Manuel Rodríguez Pérez, went to testify as a witness to the Arrecife Courts this Tuesday within the Montecarlo case, but left there as an accused, within the part of the case that investigates the alleged embezzlement of funds in this Consistory.
This was requested by the prosecutor during the interrogation, understanding that there are indications of a crime in the treasurer's actions. His statement was the first to take place after the lifting of the summary secrecy on this part of the case, after the postponements of other witnesses' statements last week.
In San Bartolomé, the payments received by José Montesinos' companies between 2002 and 2007 are being investigated. The Prosecutor's Office maintains that the contract with Montesinos could have been "rigged" so that he would be in charge of tax collection and that, apart from that contract, he also charged other invoices to the City Council as advice, for work that allegedly would not have even been carried out.
Until now, Montesinos himself, the comptroller Carlos Sáenz, the then mayor, Miguel Martín, and those who were councilors of Finance in that stage, Cándido Reguera and Javier Betancort, were accused in this piece.
"It would be the treasurer"
In his statement after being arrested, which appears in the part of the summary on which the secrecy has just been lifted, Carlos Sáenz denied having been the one who proposed the hiring of Montesinos. "I certainly did not suggest any company. It would be the treasurer", he stated.
In addition, when asked about how it is possible that 80,000 euros more were paid to Montesinos' companies, which currently maintains a judicial litigation with the City Council for the claim of this money, the comptroller also pointed to the treasurer. "When I audited it, I saw the amounts well. The treasurer would be the one who should have informed me. If I had known, it certainly would not have been done", said Carlos Saénz in relation to that payment.
Regarding other payments to Montesinos' companies that are under suspicion, of invoices that were not even signed, the comptroller Carlos Sáenz alleged that he authorized those payments because "in San Bartolomé that control is not carried out. Now recently yes, but in 2002 no".
Some of the invoices that were paid were not even in the City Council Registry and did not have the signatures legally required for their processing. "That's how the City Council worked that year. I would have to check it", the comptroller responded to questions from the prosecutor about specific payments.
RELATED NEWS
[Inelcon charged 250,000 euros from Arrecife for Christmas 2010, in a dozen "split" and "inflated" invoices according to the prosecutor->73578]
[The Prosecutor's Office requested in the complaint that opened the Montecarlo case the indictment of seven councilors from four different parties->73575]
