La Voz de Lanzarote and Radio Lanzarote continue to confuse their desires with reality, and this is the news they would have liked to publish. In fact, that's it, or at least "the main defendant in the Stratus case," which is what it might seem to those who have followed the trial that took place last week about this winery through these media outlets.
The truth is that I had some hope that the prosecutor would clarify what I was doing, cited by him as a witness in the case of an authorized winery, built and inaugurated long before I became President of the Cabildo of Lanzarote, instead of citing the presidents who were in charge of the institution in those years. But my joy was short-lived because none of the questions he asked me - in my opinion - had any relation to what was being judged. That is, an alleged influence peddling that, in any case, would have been exerted on other public officials. It didn't even have to do with the photo that the prosecutor showed me to identify myself in it at the Stratus winery, which I didn't understand, although it became crystal clear to me that it was all about photos.
Almost all the questions revolved around some alleged "counter reports" that I requested about an expert report and how extraordinary it was that I noticed the lack of validation of said report.
In this regard, I have to clarify the following:
1st That the extraordinary thing, because it was unprecedented, was that the court, instead of requesting an expert report through collaboration with the Cabildo, did so by designating the specific person in the corporation who should do it, according to what I understand at the request of the prosecutor himself, which I missed the opportunity to express and clarify in my statement.
2nd I did not request any "counter report", what I requested was up to four reports regarding that one, alerted because in said expert report, on the one hand, it was suggested - before the annulment of the Plan de La Geria - the non-application of the rule that all the institution's lawyers had been applying in all the administrative acts of the Cabildo and, on the other hand, it even denied the legal capacity of the Plan de La Geria to even establish structuring equipment above the PIOT (wineries), which was and is, in the opinion of three of the four reports requested and all the lawyers with whom I have consulted, simply absurd.
By the way, the Plan de la Geria was not annulled for that reason, or anything like it, as the aforementioned media have tried to make out. So much so, that the new plan, obviously, will also contemplate the wineries even if these are not foreseen in the PIOT.
The clear proof that simply reports were requested and not "counter reports" is that one of them was largely coincident with the expert opinion. Specifically, the one from the then head of the Office of the Island Plan of Territorial Planning, both also witnesses of the prosecutor in this case.
It is true that while in that contrast report both agree that the Special Plan of La Geria does not have the legal capacity to establish wineries, in a previous report on another winery also in the courts, on the contrary, he stated that "the use of industrial winery, would be compatible... because it is expressly included in the plan", this being one of the various reasons why the loss of confidence and subsequent dismissal of the technician occurred by political decision, in a position for which he was also appointed in his day by political decision and not competitive examination.
The aforementioned media will continue with their tantrum of giving me - me who am a simple and inexplicable witness - the treatment of main defendant in the Stratus case and the worst of the misfortunes for Lanzarote, while vetoing my presence in their informative spaces because they find it very comfortable not to give even the right of reply in what should be an exercise of plurality and journalistic ethics.
But I will continue working with the government team of the Cabildo trying to provide answers to the problems of the island, as a good part of the people of Lanzarote have understood until today, despite that persecutory and morbid mania. It must be because my deaf countrymen will not be the majority, but fools neither.
By Pedro M. San Ginés Gutiérrez
