“I am not used to giving an opinion on judicial processes and at the moment the matter is in the hands of justice, so it must be respected,” said the Canarian president in a statement collected by Europa Press. In addition to the socialist Julio Pérez, in the Genetic case Another position of the Canarian Government also appears as denounced: José Luis Delgado, general director of Road Infrastructure. Along with Pérez and Delgado, two former presidents of the Cabildo de Tenerife, Ricardo Melchior and Carlos Alonso (both from the Canarian Coalition), are also being investigated.
Torres assures that Pérez “has already given his explanation” and adds that “there are the minutes”
Judge Luz Casañas points out, in the order by which she opens the judicial proceedings, the possible criminal nature of an operation dating back 10 years, when the directors of the Scientific and Technological Park, a public company dependent on the Cabildo, approved in four councils the acquisition with public money –18.9 million– of the two plots of land in the sports city of Geneto, in La Laguna, covering 30,700 square metres, under the pretext of building a technology center there. Among those advisers is Julio Perez.
The magistrate states that the purchase “is not justified from the point of view of suitability” since it was approved when it was already known that these lands were not going to house the scientific center, but rather that it was going to be built – in fact it is being built in this moment – in Cuevas Blancas, Santa Cruz de Tenerife. In addition, Luz Casañas considers that the Geneto case breaches the Public Administration Assets Law because the price “does not correspond to the market price”. As detailed by the Prosecutor’s Office in a January complaint, now admitted by the judge and which has led her to open the judicial procedure, the Cabildo bought these lands at a price higher than the real one, based on an appraisal that used prices from downtown urban areas. of Santa Cruz, when the 30,700 square meters on which this case orbits are in Geneto, on the outskirts of La Laguna, a much cheaper area. This appraisal, adds the magistrate, would also have “expired at the time of being granted.” The operation, according to the judge, “would have caused serious economic damage” to the Science and Technology Park that “would have led it to a situation of financial imbalance and to require the contribution of external resources.”
The Canarian president indicated yesterday that Julio Pérez “has already given” his explanation and that “there are the minutes” of the last of the four councils that justice is now investigating, held on December 28, 2011, in which the spokesman for the Government of the Canary Islands voted in favor of the operation. “He has full support from the President of the Government of the Canary Islands because, in addition, we have a code of ethics that is quite clear and Julio Pérez, José Luis Delgado and other colleagues in other causes are being called by the courts and they are going to clarify what is necessary” , made clear Ángel Víctor Torres.
Julio Pérez has admitted that he participated in one of the boards of directors of the Science and Technology Park company that approved the Geneto operation. He clarified, however, that he delegated his vote to another socialist member of that council, José Luis Delgado, at that time the island councilor for Highways. “Delegating does not make the delegator responsible for the acts of the delegate,” Julio Pérez clarifies. “Before I left, they told me that the acquisition was not going to be agreed on in that council, but only the council was going to be informed, so it can be assumed that the vote would not be used to agree on the acquisition,” explains Pérez, who In this way, he transferred the responsibility of his vote in that meeting to Delgado.
The spokesman for the Canarian Government is among those denounced for voting in favor of the purchase of the plots
Among the defendants
The Prosecutor’s Office and now the judge understand that although he was a delegate, Julio Pérez voted in favor, which implies his support for the urban operation in which the Public Ministry observes urban irregularities. Hence, he is among the defendants. The head of the Ministry of Justice not only attended that board of directors. Too intervened on the point related to the acquisition of the Geneto plots before leaving and delegating to Delgado. He himself recognized it yesterday: «I said that if the land was for a university reserve [una idea que terminó desechándose en ese mismo consejo por imposibilidad de la ordenación urbanística]the appropriate thing was that they be acquired directly by the Cabildo».
