The 6 people detained two days ago in Zurgena spent yesterday and today in the central police office in Almería, being interrogated by the Police. They have been arrested under for suspected “cohecho, prevariación y delitos contra la ordenación del territorio” (Bribery, misuse of public power, and crimes against the rules of local planning laws), according to Miguel Corpas, the subdelegate of the Government in Almeria.
Miguel Corpas also confirmed that the arrests were carried out after an exhausting 11 month investigation by the Guardia Civil. The 6 suspects will be put in front of the investigating judge in Huercal Overa Court Nº 2 on Saturday morning (after the 72 hour arrest warrant expires), who will decide whether or not to free them on bail.
Investigations are continuing, with raids being carried out on offices, government offices and private homes in Zurgena, Huercal Overa, Overa & Almería city.
Luis Caparros, the delegate for Public Works, confirmed that his department was still continuing with all the current civil court cases against the town hall for permitting the over 1000 illegal houses built in this municipality of less than 2,500 inhabitants, and confirmed that the current investigation was “completely separate” from his own court cases.
The Judge investigating has, as is common in Spain, ordered the Press not to reveal any details of the case, therefore I can’t find out which other offices have been raided, with the exception of “New Horizons Estates” (the owner is one of the 6 arrested), Dizu and Procosona (no arrests).
(Picture from Jim Simpson’s, councillor of Zurgena, blog).
In other news, the “Partido Andalucista” (the political party to which Cándido Trabalón -mayor- and Manuel Tijeras -councillor for Urbanisations- belonged), held a public demonstration in support of their mayor last night at 8 o’clock in the main square of Zurgena, and have sent a car with a loud loudspeaker round rallying the faithful. The driver of the car was given a small fine by the Guardia for not having a license. A prepared speech was read out, which has been described as “a spontaneous gesture from the people of Zurgena towards their mayor”. They also denounced the “dramatic” way in which the arrests were made, saying that they were arrested “like common terrorists”. According to Jim Simpson, there were between 300 & 400 people present.
“Keep calm, Zurgena is with you” and “Zurgena has never had a mayor like you before” were some of slogans shown at this meeting. Well, quite, none of the previous ones were ever arrested before.
—- According to breaking news on Teleprensa.net, the 6 suspects have declared “No Comment” to the investigators, and thus will be brought before the Judge today instead of tomorrow.