Las Palmas de Gran Canaria (EFE).- The Investigating Court number 1 of San Bartolomé de Tirajana (Gran Canaria) has ordered the archive of the last of the live pieces of the “Góndola case” 17 years after having begun its proceedings, specifically the one related to the Taurito wastewater treatment plant.
The then mayor of Mogán, Francisco González (PP), was still charged in the case for the construction of this treatment plant on rural land in a ravine, for urban prevarication and influence peddling; businessman Santiago Santana Carzorla, for crimes against land use planning and influence peddling; and the municipal officials Patricia Hernández and Marcelino Martín, the first for prevarication and the second for influence peddling.
Last March, the investigating judge had already dismissed the charges for another of the defendants, Ángel Sutil, and now she is reviewing her decision to extend it to all because she does not appreciate any crime in the facts that have been investigated in these years.
The instructor recalls that the crime against land use planning responds to an open concept that depends on what is determined at any given time by other regulations of an urban nature or the protection of natural spaces, so that for a construction to be criminal it is not enough to that does not have a license.
It is also required, he adds, that it be contrary to planning and that it is not susceptible to legalization because the soil on which it is built and the applicable regulations do not contemplate these specific uses.
The judge concludes, in this context, that having built the Taurito ravine treatment plant on residual rustic land did not commit a crime because that installation was “legalizable” at that time (2004), in light of the provisions of the Planning Laws. of the Territory and Natural Spaces of the Canary Islands, which, “exceptionally”, allowed industrial uses to be located on this type of land “that are integrated into actions of general interest”.
Once the crime against land use planning has been ruled out, the instructor examines the crime of prevarication, about which she recalls that it is not activated just for having issued a resolution that later turns out to be illegal, but rather demands that it be done knowing its arbitrariness.
“There will be no crime if there are reasonable doubts about the arbitrariness of a resolution or if it is subject to a doctrinal or jurisprudential interpretation,” remarks the order to file the case, which does not appreciate that the then mayor of Mogán and the municipal officials prosecuted they will make “an unfair and arbitrary decision”.
Regarding the possibility that the businessman Santiago Santana Cazorla had committed influence peddling in his relations with the mayor and officials in order to obtain favorable treatment, the judge did not see sufficient evidence that this was the case.
Although she considers that there was “unethical behavior”, the instructor qualifies that the procedures carried out in recent years “do not allow the classification of criminal conduct to be attributed to those investigated as constituting the crime of influence peddling”.
For this reason, it upholds the appeal presented by the Public Prosecutor’s Office itself and by the defense against its previous resolution and archives this criminal procedure for all the accused, which was opened in 2006. EFE
The entry The judge archives the last piece of the “Góndola case” 17 years later was first published in EFE Noticias.