Jose Angel Martin Bethencourt, number 2 on the list led by Patricia Hernández (PSOE) to the Santa Cruz de Tenerife in the elections to be held next Sundayhas been arrested this Wednesday for an alleged assault to a manager of the team grassroots football San José El Tablero, in the capital’s municipality.
Martín Bethencourt, who this term has been an opposition councilor and became responsible for Urban Planning of the Santa Cruz City Council, was arrested by the Local Police more than an hour after the events and taken to the National Police premises, where he gave a statement.
The person attackeda member of the board of directors of the San José El Tablero soccer team, is admitted to the Emergency Department of the University Hospital of the Canary Islands (HUC). Family sources assured that he has tears affecting the tibia and fibula, and that doctors are evaluating him for operate it this thursday.
The events occurred after 6:00 p.m.when two managers of the club went to the field of the chicharrero neighborhood of El Tablero to open the facilities to the women’s team of soccer de Tenerife, which carries out a training program, which goes beyond sport, called ‘Female Talent’.
According to eyewitnesses consulted by EL DÍA, from the Prensa Ibérica group, when the two directors had opened the facilities and the players of the Tenerife women’s team and their families began to make an appearance, Several people from the PSOE appeared, including José Ángel Martín Bethencourt, who were making a visit as part of the electoral campaign. The players of the women’s team were going to start a new day of the training program at 6:15 p.m.
According to witnesses, the PSOE councilor kicked a door that fell on a club manager
José Ángel Martín asked the two directors of San José to open the changing rooms for him without clarifying why. The councilor was accompanied, among others, by Elena Mateo, former Councilor for Sports and also a member of Patricia Hernández’s list to the Tenerife capital City Council.
The two directors of San José El Tablero CF asked her to identify herself because at first they thought they were relatives of the players of the women’s soccer team. It was then that a discussion began because the socialist councilor began to behave aggressively, always according to direct witnesses to the events.
The two representatives of the club went to the offices of the El Tablero soccer field, while José Ángel Martín Bethencourt followed them and insisted that they give him the keys to the field’s changing rooms. By getting more and more aggressivethe managers proceeded to close the door, while asking the councilor to calm down.
It was then that the socialist councilor, always according to witnesses, told him he kicked the door several timeswhich fell on the leg of one of the two managers who were in the office, aged 60, causing one or more fractures, pending the final report from the HUC doctors.
The 60-year-old victim is admitted to the HUC Emergency Room with leg fractures
In addition to taking a statement from number 2 on the list of Patricia Hernández to the Santa Cruz de Tenerife City Council in the local elections to be held next Sunday, The National Police has also taken a statement from the victim and the other executive who accompanied himwho have family ties and have announced that they are going to file a complaint against José Ángel Martín Bethencourt for assault.
PSOE statement
In the last hours of Wednesday, the PSOE published a statement which reads as follows: “According to the known information, given the impossibility of communicating with Mr. José Ángel Martín and ignoring the statement of the facts, If these are confirmed, the PSOE will request his resignation as a member of the socialist candidacy of which he is a part”.
Born in Santa Cruz de Tenerife in 1975, José Ángel Martín Bethencourt is a social educator and average technician in occupational hazards. He was appointed councilor of the Socialist Municipal Group of the Santa Cruz de Tenerife City Council in October 2005, a position he holds to this day. He worked as a social educator for Cáritas Diocesana de Tenerife in the San Antonio de Padua project, Casa de Acogida de Inmigrantes (1999 to 2003). He is a member of the advisory team of Cáritas Diocesana de Tenerife.
Martín Bethencourt was responsible for the Department of Urbanism of the City Council of the capital of Tenerife. Likewise, he is a founding member of the Ínsula Viable Association, which denounced the Las Teresitas case, which led Miguel Zerolo, the former mayor of Santa Cruz, and the businessmen Antonio Plasencia and Ignacio González to jail for crimes of urban corruption.
