One day in advance, yesterday, at the Provincial Court, the trial concluded in which the prosecutor ratified his request for sentences of 7.5 years in prison for each of the three defendants for alleged crimes of bribery, fraud and prevarication: the former councilor of Arico Álvaro Arbelo and two businessmen. The Public Prosecutor’s Office requests that the allegedly defrauded money be established, that the Civil Guard figure in 40,000 euros, and proceed to its return to the City Council, according to Efe.
The facts judged go back to the years 2010 and 2011 (between two mandates). The prosecutor establishes that the businessmen and the councilor – he was in charge of the Urban Planning and Works areas at some point – would have agreed to award works “by finger” and appropriate part of the money paid by the Consistory. The alleged crime of fraud would be based on the fact that the budgets of the works were extended to the maximum possible permitted by law. The prevarication would only affect the councilman and would be justified in that he was not qualified to carry out adjudications.
In the room it was exposed that there are two people related to the case whose whereabouts are unknown. It is about a woman who controlled a company of one of the defendants and who has been missing for ten years, as well as a worker from a consultancy.
During the second session of the trial, the son of another businessman who appeared as a proxy assured that he did not perform any work, which motivated the prosecutor to conclude that the two accused businessmen were the ones who controlled the five companies classified as fictitious. They lacked personnel and material means, so they had to resort to subcontracting and carry out the works with freelancers.
The private home of one of the businessmen served as the eventual headquarters of a company linked to the case, while the companies did not comply with their tax and accounting obligations, lacking inventory, as reflected in the trial. Another aspect highlighted in the room, as reported by Efe, is that in the period in which these alleged events occurred, only a small percentage of the work was allowed to be subcontracted. Another “coincidence” alluded to by the prosecutor is that, when the contest was called, all the companies under suspicion presented their proposals on the same day.
Free acquittal
The three lawyers for the defendants agreed to request free acquittal on the grounds that all the contracts complied with the law as they were endorsed by officials from the Arico City Council and had the required reports.
The lawyer of the accused former councilman, Álvaro Arbelo González (Canarian Coalition), said that none of the evidence presented by the Prosecutor’s Office was strong and that there are errors in the amounts allegedly defrauded. “Here there has been no black hand, but what there are are manipulated documents that appear after the investigation,” said the lawyer.
