“Media process”, “public stoning”, “complaint for political reasons”, “prospective investigation”, “need to involve a mayor in the process so that the matter does not go downhill” … These were just some of the the expressions that were heard this Monday in the hall of the Benalúa courts where he was seen for sentencing the trial by the Calp garbage plot, one of the Brugal case pieces.
A process that seeks to clarify whether, as the accusations claim, Public officials of the Calp City Council asked for money al Orihuela businessman Ángel Fenoll in exchange for the award of the local waste treatment plant. Some alleged bites that the “father” of the Brugal case it would recover through tricks such as altering the weighing of garbage or the introduction of discharges that were not initially in the contract, algae or construction material among others, to fraudulently raise the billing by modifying the weights upwards.
Together with Fenoll and his son sit on the bench for these events the former mayor of Calp Javier Morató (PP); the exedile and ex-provincial deputy for the same party Juan Roselló; his wife, Amparo Femenía; his brother-in-law Francisco Artacho, the also exedil Fernando Penella and the technician Juan Cervantes. They are charged with crimes of bribery, embezzlement of public funds, prevarication and money laundering for which they face the request of jail sentences that range between two and five years in addition to disqualification from public office.
The defense of the former provincial deputy and former Calp deputy Juan Roselló was the first to attack the investigation and the Prosecutor’s Office. Then the others would come. The lawyer Carlos Barona stressed that his client has not been seen receiving money from anyone. The Prosecutor’s Office maintains that the person in charge of these tasks was his brother-in-law Artacho, recorded by Fenoll in his office counting four million pesetas and considered the intermediary between the politicians and the businessman. That it is not specified when or how the trespass and fraud were committed, that his client “knew nothing about the alleged plot because it does not exist” and that “there was no overpricing or over-billing either.” An increase that the accusations set at 4.2 million and whose return to the municipal coffers they claim in solidarity from all the defendants, with the exception of Roselló’s wife, pointing to the Fenoll company, formerly Colsur and now Sirem, responsible subsidiary civil
The lawyer of the former popular politician defended that the award of the plant to Fenoll “was unanimously and obeying technical criteria”, that its municipal powers were beaches and tourism, and not garbage, and that “its increase in assets was obtained legally ».
Barona insisted that there is no evidence that Roselló “carried out any trick to benefit Fenoll” and that “the one who had to prove it was the Prosecutor’s Office and he has not done so.” And he attributed the involvement of his representative in this process to “having the ideal profile for being a provincial deputy and for his enormous political charisma,” he said.
A theory, that of the political background of the case, to which the defense of the former Calp mayor Javier Morató also pointed. “It was imputed to my client because there had to be a mayor to see if it would have luster and prevent the Prosecutor’s house of cards from falling apart,” said lawyer Enrique Botella.
Imputed by news
The lawyer added that Morató “was included in the case due to press reports,” that it has not been proven that he negotiated with Fenoll before the contract was awarded, that there are no indications of the crime of bribery and that “there is a desperate attempt to sneak a prevarication.
Bottle stressed that the private prosecution, which is exercised on behalf of the Consistory, does not accuse him, summarized the process in which “the City Council does not want to pay for a service that Colsur has provided” and ruled that “for the good of the rule of law, no You can have someone involved in a process without evidence for a decade.
Manuel Roura, defender of the former Treasury chief Fernando Penella and Roselló’s wife, Amparo Femenía, did not depart much from these arguments, of whom he denied that he had laundered the money from the bites that her husband would have received, of which he is accused . For Roura, his clients have suffered a “public stoning” and a “media trial” for a matter in his prescribed opinion.
The lawyer and also exedil in Calp for the EU, although with powers delegated by the PP, recalled that the 17 councilors voted in favor of the award of the Fenoll plant and wondered “why would any gift have to be paid if the contract was legal?”.
He criticized that “all reports on weighings are based on statistics and not facts” and assured that the plant “was designed for all types of waste.” He also insisted on the “political nature of the complaint” and added that “the fact that his client was a councilor for the Treasury means that he had unlimited and uncontrolled access to the public coffers.”
As a technician Juan Cervantes, his defense emphasized that he should not have done so badly when he was reinstated to his position in the City Council and has even been promoted, in addition to getting a guard appointed for the plant. And Fenoll’s commercial lawyer delved into the “lack of evidence from the Prosecutor’s Office to affirm that the weighing was altered.”
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Eddie is an Australian news reporter with over 9 years in the industry and has published on Forbes and tech crunch.