Huesca (EFE).- The head of the Investigating Court number 5 of Huesca has refused to agree to a new extension of the Oikos case, of rigging in Spanish professional football, and has terminated the investigations, pending a decision regarding the opening of an oral trial for the facts that still remain under suspicion and almost five years after the case was made public.
In her brief, to which Efe has had access, the magistrate considers the statement of the expert who detected alleged irregularities in payments made by the Huesca Sports Society for the execution of works in the field to be “unnecessary”, proof by which the legal representative of the Professional Football League urged a new extension on the understanding that the allegedly diverted money could be used for “the payment of premiums to third parties in order to alter the result of the sports competition”.
The lawyer, in line with the request of the prosecution, which requested the end of the investigation days ago, considers that the statement of this expert is evidence “typical of the act of the oral trial”, and that it is not appropriate to extend the investigations as there are no more proceedings to carry out.
Waiting for the parties to rule on the file or the opening of the oral trial, the judge maintains the former president of Huesca Agustín Lasaosa, and the Huesca team itself, as investigated; former soccer players Carlos Aranda, Rául Bravo and Íñigo López; the promoter Pryobras and its manager, Jesús Sanagustín; and also ex-soccer players Jorge Larrosa, Carlos Caballero and Miguel Ángel Tena.
The extension request raised by La Liga was rejected in the first instance by the lawyer of the promoter and its manager, the Huesca lawyer Ricardo Orús, in a letter, to which Efe has also had access, in which he regretted “the diffuseness of its wording and its legal imprecision” by not requesting in his request “clear and specific” investigative proceedings.
In accordance with the judicial decision adopted, appealable before the Court of Huesca, the magistrate will request in the next few days the parties, accusations and defenses, to rule on the possibility of opening an oral trial for these facts.
A case promoted by the League that throughout the almost five years of investigation has added dozens of defendants for different crimes, including soccer players, managers or bettors, for most of whom the case has been dismissed.
As accusations appear in the case the prosecutor’s office, and the individuals promoted by the Professional Football League, the Royal Spanish Football Federation and Real Valladolid, one of the teams that were splashed during the investigation of the case.