Trial of Otura's former mayor resumes with testimony from accused in fraud and abuse-of-authority case
Granada High Court resumes proceedings against Ignacio Fernández-Sanz, former PP mayor, and four other ex-councillors over the 2008 waste contract. All face five years in prison.
The accused testify before Granada High Court over Otura waste contract
Granada High Court resumes on Monday the trial against Otura's former mayor Ignacio Fernández-Sanz of the PP, accused of alleged crimes of fraud, embezzlement of public funds and abuse of authority, according to andaluciainformacion.es. The facts are related to the municipal waste collection and street cleaning contract approved in 2008 and terminated two years later.
Alongside Fernández-Sanz, four other ex-councillors from the same municipality are in the dock, accused of the same crimes. The Public Prosecutor's Office is requesting five years in prison and eight years of disqualification for each of them.
Monday's hearing includes testimony from the accused, which the court authorised to reserve for the end of the trial, at the request of the defence teams. It is also expected that the representative of the company awarded the contract will testify, whose absence led to the adjournment of the previous hearing, held on 22 April.
In that first hearing, an ex-councillor was acquitted due to expiry of the statute of limitations.
Objections ignored and contracting approved with eight votes
During the trial, two municipal secretaries and two auditors testified, ratifying the objection reports they had issued at the time. Municipal audit specifically pointed to the "lack of budgetary allocation" and the absence of "economic analysis to justify the cost of service delivery".
The municipal secretariat warned that it was "not possible to open the contracting procedure" until both deficiencies were corrected, according to the Public Prosecutor's provisional charge document consulted by Europa Press. A report dated 24 January 2008 confirmed the same view.
However, the next day the municipal plenary approved the contracting "despite the objections noted", with five votes from PP councillors and three from the Otura Independent Group.
Contract termination without mandatory reports
In November 2010, less than two years after the start of the service, the mayor convened an extraordinary plenary session to terminate the contract, "without any justification", according to the public prosecutor's case. The session was allegedly held "without the mandatory reports from municipal audit, technical services" or the secretariat having been obtained, a circumstance of which the councillors present at the start of the plenary were warned.
Those same councillors, including the mayor, approved the termination agreement. Fernández-Sanz subsequently signed, "without processing any official file" and "with a total absence of procedure", an agreement to resolve the contract, allegedly "for the purpose of benefiting the contractor and with the same date as the plenary", according to the Public Prosecutor's Office.
Source: Google News ES — Crime (es)