It was 2007 when a journalist from La Voz de Lanzarote, almost fresh out of college, returned to the newsroom after covering her first trial. And she arrived both impressed and scandalized. Scandalized by the events that were recounted there. Impressed by the intervention of the prosecutor, who had acted ex officio to bring no less than two National Police officers to the stand. Shortly after, the sentence considered it proven that these police officers assaulted and illegally detained a person in Arrecife, whom they crossed paths with when they were off duty, on a night out. The only crime the victim had committed, apparently, was being black. Or not having pleased them. Sometimes, human beings can be terrifying. But that's exactly what Justice is for.
It was 2006 when a journalist from La Voz de Lanzarote conducted an extensive interview with the then mayor of Yaiza, José Francisco Reyes. And he also returned to the newsroom both scandalized and impressed, although in this case not for the better. In the midst of the brick and urban speculation boom, and when judgments had already begun to arrive declaring dozens of licenses illegal, Reyes stated that César Manrique "was fine with" building hotels where the Papagayo Arena was built, that the licenses were being annulled "due to an administrative procedure", "due to a trifle", and that he slept "peacefully every night". "Let them take me to Anti-Corruption, let them do it. If a prosecutor calls me one day, I will tell him to investigate what was intended to be done with this municipality, because everything has been appealed," he stated defiantly in that interview.
Three years later, in front of a prosecutor, the same prosecutor, José Francisco Reyes admitted that he had received money from various businessmen in exchange for granting those illegal licenses. "No one gives anything in exchange for nothing," he said in that statement in court. It was then September 2009, and Reyes had just been arrested, along with several members of his family, for crimes of urban corruption and money laundering.
It was that same year, and some before and after, when the lawyer Felipe Fernández Camero strived to demonstrate that he was not the "mastermind" hiding behind that illegal licensing scheme. When he defended in court that he had not advised the former mayor of Yaiza. And his effort served him to have his indictment in that case dismissed, but also to have another one opened against him. Because a prosecutor, the same prosecutor, then accused him of embezzlement of public funds. And it is that for years, Camero charged hundreds of thousands of euros from the Yaiza City Council for alleged advisory work, without any trace of that service. Currently, he is awaiting trial and with a request for 6 years in prison only in that case (he is also charged in the Unión case).
It was 2008 when the press gathered at the Stratvs winery to cover a grand opening party attended by some of the most prominent politicians on the island and throughout the Canary Islands. They said they were impressed with the facilities. Others saw the news scandalized and wondered how such a new project could have been authorized in one of the most protected areas of the island.
Seven years later, the indictment of a prosecutor, the same prosecutor, allowed to know the entire chronology that surrounded that work, which faced files, orders to stop and sanctions that were never executed. In fact, it was a judge who had to close that winery in December 2013, in a decision that was later endorsed by the Provincial Court. And that decision marked a before and after in the history of impunity that had been experienced until then on the island. That's exactly what Justice is for.
It was 2009 when Dimas Martín, shortly after his arrest in Operation Unión, sent a letter to the media from the Tahíche prison, defying the UCO and Justice, and stating that despite the "deployment" of the operation, they had not managed to find any "unjustified increase" in his assets. Less than a year later, Dimas was arrested again, again in his cell in Tahíche. And with him, several of his alleged frontmen were arrested, accused of having hidden assets valued at millions of euros from the historical leader of the PIL. In his case, he already had other convictions behind him. But that investigation, and everything that the Unión case involved (thanks to the work of the UCO, a judge and two prosecutors, one of them, the same prosecutor), ended the "legend", created by Dimas himself, that he was a kind of persecuted person who was imprisoned for making "bathing areas for the people".
The year 2009 was ending when a new mayor entered the Arrecife City Council, thanks to a motion of censure supported by two councilors who had just been released from provisional prison, and who had already confessed to having received bribes, precisely within the Unión case. In that Plenary, the new mayor promised "glass walls". Two and a half years later, that mayor (now deceased) was charged, along with other councilors from that government group and the one that entered in 2011. A new case then broke out, the Montecarlo case, which began with the investigation of a prosecutor, the same prosecutor. And in that case, the name of the auditor, Carlos Sáenz, appeared for the first time, who was revealed as a key piece of corruption in that City Council (and in others), and who was also charged later in the Unión case, and has even been convicted in the first instance in one of the pieces.
"The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing", said the writer, politician and philosopher Edmund Burke nearly a century ago. And for a long time, for too long, nothing was done in Lanzarote. And that is why corruption took root deeper and deeper, for the benefit of a few. Those who skipped the laws that bound the rest, building what they wanted, when they wanted and where they wanted, while some filled their pockets. Those who charged hundreds of thousands or millions of euros of public money, thanks to fraudulent contracts and inflated or directly invented invoices, for services that had not been provided. Many things were suspected, but it was when Justice began to act, when it was possible to take dimension of what had really happened and was still happening in Lanzarote. When the connivance that had existed between certain politicians and certain technicians was evidenced, to favor certain businessmen, to the detriment of the rest of society. When impunity ended. That's exactly what Justice is for.
It is now 2016, and it would be naive to think that corruption has disappeared from Lanzarote. But there has been a radical change in the last decade. There are no longer many (although there are still some) technicians willing to sign anything. Or to make empty reports, so as not to have to report against something illegal. And perhaps this has also contributed to the fact that a prosecutor, the same prosecutor, managed, for example, that the secretary of Yaiza was convicted and removed from his position for it. And that there is also a long list of technicians from the Cabildo and several city councils accused in different cases.
Today, not only are there people convicted and many others awaiting trial in proceedings whose instruction is already closed, but also hundreds of thousands of euros, and it may be millions, pending being returned to the administration by the people who embezzled them. Today, the "paper theory" (the one for which they claimed that illegal hotels only had an "administrative problem") is dead and buried. Today, a mayoress who comes from the PIL orders the demolition of hotels, or part of them, because they cannot be legalized even having changed the planning. Today, many citizens of this island believe more in Justice than 10 years ago.
Obviously, there is still a long way to go. And there are still those who believe they are above the law or capable of circumventing it. And also those who are willing to "help" them do so from the administration. But for a decade, and especially in the last seven years, they have begun to find Justice in front of them. To agents of the UCO of the Civil Guard, to members of the UDEF of the National Police, to different judges (and female judges), to secretaries and officials of the Courts, to the Public Prosecutor's Office... And in particular to a prosecutor, the same prosecutor, whose name is repeated in the main cases against corruption opened in Lanzarote, and also in many others. A prosecutor who contributed to marking this new course towards a more just island without impunity. An island where, currently, we can say that there are no untouchables left. That's exactly what Justice is for.
Justice is a concept. A "moral principle", according to the RAE. But for it to exist, there must be people who fight for it. Even in difficult circumstances. Even with few resources. Even at the cost of enduring a campaign orchestrated to discredit judges and prosecutors and to defend, precisely, the accused, who have media outlets in their name and have tried to gag the rest.
As Bertolt Brecht said, "there are men who fight one day and they are good. There are others who fight one year and they are better. There are those who fight many years, and they are very good. But there are those who fight all their lives, those are the essential ones." And in Justice, without a doubt, there are people who have been and are essential. Although now he is going to continue fighting elsewhere.
Good luck, Mr. Stampa. And thank you very much.