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Mayor of Zurgena and 24 more charged in urban corruption case

Judge David Villagrá of Huercal Overa Court Nº 2 has allowed charges to be placed against the Mayor of Zurgena, Cándido Trabalón, his second in command Manuel Tijeras, and 23 other people.

It has been 15 months since Guardia Civil officers swooped on the sleepy little town of Zurgena, arresting the mayor and several other people. During the operation they closed the town hall and the offices of several promoters in the area, seizing computers and documents. The case has been ongoing, and yesterday evening the investigating Judge announced the results.

The investigating judge has identified nine separate counts of abuse of public office (prevariacación), bribery of a public official, crimes against the planning process, falsification of documents, carrying out of actions prohibited of an elected official, selling of favors and public disobedience.

He therefore has allowed charges to stand and the public prosecutor has ten days to state their case for a preliminary hearing which may take place in the Provincial Courts. However, the full case is not expected to be heard until the end of the year at earliest.

Under Spanish court rules, an Investigating Judge directs a police investigation. If the Judge is satisfied that a crime may have been committed, the file is handed to the Public Prosecutor (Fiscalía) and sent to a different court for trial. If the Judge does not believe there to be sufficient evidence for a case he can “archive” the case and stop proceedings.

Defense lawyers for all 25 charged people say they are optimistic about the trial. When asked about the famous secret recordings taken by police officers, they said that in their opinion these tapes would not be admissible in court due to the poor sound quality. At least one lawyer intends to make a complaint of entrapment.

The Judge’s charges against Mayor Cándido states that he may be guilty of “allowing illegal building licenses to be approved through the process of silencio administrativo” (when a public administration does not reply to a request for a license, allowing the applicant to assume that permission has been granted) and “and bribery by building five detached villas in Los Menchones, these buildings being constructed by promoters who in turn gave the Mayor a consideration for his approval of the construction works”. He is also accused of falsifying documents, as according to the Judge “he certified the antiquity of a house when it was obvious it had been built subsequent to the claimed date”.

Manuel Tijeras, Councillor for Urbanisation, is accused of “signing documents allowing the segregation of land for building on rustic land” and for “granting building licenses knowing full well that the projects did not comply with building regulations and / or were on rustic land”. He is also accused of using a luxury vehicle owned by a well known local builder, Antonio López, for whom the prosecution claims he was “working undercover while in the townhall” as well as amounts of money in exchange for building licenses, granted with the justification of (non existent) favorable reports and signed off by the Mayor with false antiquity reports (which would allow them to be granted escrituras).

Eight former and current councillors of the P.A. and PSOE parties (between 2003 and 2007 the Partido Andalucista ruled in a coalition with the PSOE local party) have been charged, along with several tecnicos and public officials from the townhall, and the heads of several building companies, namely: Tomás Zurano (Zuydi), Antonio Lopez (Procosona) and Francisco Javier (New Medina Villas).

Four civil servants from the town hall are among those charged, accused of different crimes relating to them issuing false reports or documents, as well as two architects who worked for both the townhall and builders. The Secretary of the townhall has been charged, as has a tecnico who also had an interest in New Medina Villas.

Other companies involved in the trial, which belonged to the people charged as subsidiaries of the three main companies, were Dizu (owned by Tomás Zurano), Solanor, Welcome to Spanish Home, Procosona and Colyar.

The shape of the trial, and the expected timescale, will not be known until later this month after an initial oral hearing at Huercal Overa. The case is expected to be sent to the Provincial Audience and it is expected that all 25 people will be trialled at the same time in a joint case.

The case gives a nasty feeling of small town politics where everybody is related to everybody else and a web of deceit and corruption was woven, all in order to build as many homes as possible without having to worry too much about the permits. Is this feeling true? Well, owners of the estimated 6,000 illegal homes in the area may be excused for jumping to conclusions, but only time -and Spanish Justice- will tell the truth.

Full list of charges:

-Candido Trabalón: abuse of office, bribery, abuse of urban planning and forgery

-Pedro María Soto: Bribery

-José Juan Sánchez: abuse of urban planning rights

-Juan Morales: abuse of urban planning rights

-José A. Ramos: abuse of urban planning

-Emilia Jimenez: abuse of urban planning

-Aniceto López: abuse of urban planning

-Manuel Tijeras: abuse of office, bribery and forgery

-Miguel Marín: abuse of urban planning

-Tomás Zurano: Bribery, buying of favours and abuse of urban planning

-Josefa Sanchez: abuse of urban planning

-Pedro Segura: abuse of urban planning

-Trinidad Lidueña: abuse of urban planning

-Francisco Díez: Bribery and prohibited negotiations

Juan José Galera: Crimes against ordering of the territory.

Francisco Nortes: Crimes against ordering of the territory.

José M. Nortes: Crimes against ordering of the territory.

Faustino Mellado: Crimes against ordering of the territory and disobedience.

Adoración Gómez: Crimes against ordering of the territory.

Antonio López: Crimes against ordering of the territory and bribery.

Carlos Berbel: Prohibited activities and abuse of office.

José M. Garcia: Crimes against ordering of the territory.

Fco. Salvador: Prohibited activities

José M. Diaz: Crimes against ordering of the territory.

Miguel Marín: Abuse of power in the planning process.

A 3 year old English toddler fell into a swimming pool in La Alfoquia and drowned before his parents could rescue him.

Story

Here’s a good one – I’ve just read that Zurgena is known all over Spain because it is the last entry in any alphabetical guide or dictionaries to Spanish villages!

People from Zurgen are called Zurgeneros, by the way.

According to Jim Simpson, Almerias only English councillor, over in Zurgena a gentleman expat has had his land expropriated up to a meter away from his swimming pool for the new motorway. (Here). Blimey. Of course, he won’t get a penny more than the 1,2€odd a m2 for land they actually take. He’s also stuffed inasmuch as he can’t do anything within 150m of the motorway, so goodbye any  new structure on his land….

Jim Simpson is an English expat who was elected to the local council of Zurgena in the last elections, despite not speaking any Spanish. His blog is over at http://jiminy304.vox.com and is worth consulting, if only to bow your head in sympathy with his struggles with local bureaucracy, corruption, politics and life. He’s also head of the local neighbourhood watch and is trying to force the Guardia into “community” policing, as if he didn’t have enough on his plate already. Not a man who takes retirement lightly, our Jim, and well done.

However, he seems to have finally bowed to the “Spanish way of doing things”, as evidenced by his advice on his blog after consulting the new map of Zurgena (they’re changing the street names):

I was also made aware of the fact that a change in street names can cause some people problems particularly where an address has been officially recognised for some considerable time. In those cases my advice would be to ignore the new allocated street names until it becomes necessary to use it eg when obtaining a new empadronimiento etc. (Read the whole post here)

Yup, let’s ignore the changes unless forced to. Well done Jim, you’re finally becoming a proper Almeriense!

As you will know, there is a protest march organised by such AVEP, AULAN, AUAN, AUN, LSOS, Cuidadanos Europeos and others, in Almeria on the 9th of Jan through Almeria city to try to bring media attention back to the Priors case and urban abuse in general. (See programme info at Spanish Shilling or other good websites).

While not wishing to aspirations on the much lauded attempt to bring media attention back to the Priors, I am forced to wonder just how much good a march like this will do, and, indeed, if it is contraproductive in the short to medium term.

This is a march that is designed only to bring EU attention to the case, following on from the recent EU draft parlimentary resolution on Urban Abuse in Spain (blog entry here) and hopefully UK & German press attention.

But from a local perspective, and in my opinion after reading quite a bit about it in local (Spanish) press this is not going to sit well with regional politicians, who, as expats can’t vote in regional or national elections in Spain, don’t give two hoots what they think about anything. But they do care what local Spaniards and national press say. Since the economic downturn has just about killed off the expat property market, the politicians don’t need to worry about bad press back in the UK – promoters are too busy trying to stay afloat to bring any real pressure on the politicians and nobody really thinks that Brits back in the UK are going to be scared off because of a protest march (as they aren’t going anywhere until the pound pops back up).

So we’re in a situation where Brits are marching in the streets of Almeria, and the politicians are only worried about the locals. So, how are the politicians going to try to control the situation and come out smelling of roses?

First of all, and we’re seeing this now, they are trying to turn this into a Expat vs Locals situation. Once the (Spanish) press believe that it is only Expats that are affected, then they’ll stop trying to see the (mainly expat) property owners point of view. And they’re doing this by pointing out that in many cases proper legal protocol wasn’t carried out “in order to save the purchasers money – didn’t trust / didn’t have the money to pay proper lawyers, gestors, notaries that we Spanish do! So why is it our fault they were conned?”

Then they say that “the Brits were fully aware of the situation, but just thought that since they were rich immigrants they could get away with it and stuff the locals, we poor people who pay tax and live legally, so it’s their problem to sort it out”.

And so we end up in a situation where the (Spanish) press, while sympathetic, believe that it’s the purchasers fault for trying to save money on their homes in Spain, avoid the tax they should pay and brought illegal homes without carrying out proper checks because they thought they were invincible.

And don’t start on about rigorous journalistic reports in the impartial media, because that doesn’t exist. Rare is the Spanish newspaper that does not tow the party political line. Editors are easily replaceable if the proprietor doesn’t agree with his papers opinions.

And the politicians can point out, to the rare voice that asks what’s being done, to the commission being setup to survey and regulate illegal homes in the area. “Yes”, they’ll say, smugly, “the Brits are complaining, but it’s because they can’t be bothered to learn Spanish or integrate with our community – we’re sorting the problem out but they can’t even be bothered to ask what we’re doing!”

Why, I’ve even seen comments in the press that suggest that with the collapse of the pound property owners are trying to get their homes ruled illegal so that they can get out of paying the mortgage!

And so we Brits appear, marching through the streets, in a well intentioned, well organised, multi lingual protest – a lovely image that will be quickly swung around in the public mind to “whinging immigrants who tried to con local Spaniards by ignoring rules and refused to pay the same taxes I have to pay!”

And that’s why I feel the march is counterproductive for the local market (ignoring the international media attention it may -or may not- generate, which will help with the EU). But even if the EU brings pressure onto Spain, it will just increase the local sentiment of “Bloody Brits, welcomed them into my country and they’re worse than the bloody Moros“.If we’re not careful.

The Mayor of Zurgena, Candido, et al, seems to be blaming the PSOE for his recent problems with law, blaming them for a “witch hunt” due to the fact that “he belongs to another political party which has the temerity to win local elections”.

The local Guardia Civil agents arrested for passing confidential information about police patrols to drug smugglers are saying that they are being persecuted for “shopping a corrupt police Sargent, back in 2000”.

To take two headlines for local papers from just this week.

Now I’m sorry, but every crook who is arrested will blame somebody else. So, why does the local press print all these complaints?

As I pass through Zurgena, I do hear a lot of complaints about the fact that Candido is being persecuted because he is not PSOE (Candido belongs to the Partido Andalucista Party, the same party that controls Vera). This is being said by both Spanish and English. But, in my personal experience, it is being said by the older Spanish. The same Spaniards who are used to political corruption from the “never to be mentioned” dictator days. The same Spaniards who all know people who have been dragged from their beds during the night by the Guardia, and shot, just for daring to mention the corruption endemic in local elections during the 50s, 60s, 70s.

Any Spaniard over the age of 35ish will shrug when the whole topic of illegal builds and political corruption is raised. “So what?” is the comment I most hear. Of course they care, they have just grown up in a situation where the people in power have the right to make money by means fair or foul.

Among Spaniards of my generation, raise the topic of illegal builds or political corruption, and they will either shrug or blush. They know it’s wrong, they are ashamed, they just don’t know how to fix the problem. What, you think local elections circa 1920 in the UK were any better?????

Spain (and possibly Portugal) are unique among the EU at the moment of having the emerging controlling generation inculcated in our liberal western judicial system, versus a retiring generation used to a military dictatorship.

Candido and his buddies may, or may not, be guilty of pocketing backhanders. If they were, I expect that they were guilty of nothing more than asking for what they thought was their fair share of the profits*.

But let me just say, that if you truly believe that the whole Spanish judicial system, both judges and police, are taking direct orders from the current ruling political party, then what the hell are you still doing living in Spain. The real scandal is not that Candido was arrested, but that it is taking them so long to arrest the rest of the bastards who ripped off so many naïve foreigners.

*In response to expected emails, that comment was ironic.

The Guardia Civil have now cautioned 24 people in Zurgena under Operation “Costurero”, an investigation into alleged corruption and official bribery related to illegal building in the municipality.

Three of them are councillors for the PSOE and PP parties, who are accused of misuse of public power (prevaricacion) having voted for these illegal builds. They have issued statements stating that since the tecnicos and the town hall secretary stated that permissions would be granted for these builds, they did not realise that they were being built on rural ground.

In further news, the civil governor of Almeria, Miguel Corpas, accused Candido and Tijeras of “putting up a smokescreen” by complaining about the state of the cells in the central Almeria Guardia Civil HQ, where they recently spent a short spell. Apparantly, they are complaining about having to eat “chorizo sandwiches and magdalenas”. Perhaps, he scoffed, they are trying to improve the menu before spending a longer time there. He did, however, promise to look into why Tijeras could not take his medicine for a tooth abcess, and why Candido had his watch confiscated.

 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.

 Much excitement today as the news broke of the arrests of the mayor of Zurgena, Candido Trabalon, the Councilman in charge of Urbanisations, Manuel Tijeras, the town architect, an associate of the town architect, the owner of “New Horizon Villas” (according to “El Pais”) and Tomas Zurano, president of the “Constructores Andaluces de Obra Publica” in a massive police operation. Such was the police operation that an elderly lady ran into a bar shouting “¡Los Geos! ¡Los Geos han tomado el pueblo!” and had to be reassured that a coup d´etat was not underway.

 The charges, as our american cousins would say, were for “grand, grand larceny”, bribery and corruption. Rumour has it that Manuel Tijeras allegedly paid €600,000 in his bank account two days before signing off on a large land deal, then boasted about it in a bar.

(Pic courtesy of Teleprensa.net)

 The mayor (from the Partido Andalucista, the same nationalist party that governs Vera) had declared last year in front of a judge, and later said that his “soul is pure”. This didn’t stop the judge from ordering his arrest! The investigation into the over 1000 illegal homes continues.

 It seems clear that after the national elections the bigwigs in Seville have decided to continue with the current investigations into massive property fraud in the region. What we know have to wait and see is whether or not their poor showing in the local elections (Almeria went heavily P.P., against the majority trend) has convinced the politicians to stop hounding the victims of the frauds (remember the condemned houses in Vera? 5 more still to come down) and go after the swines who got rich off the scams.

Of course, it seems that the Guardia may be looking into this at a national level – they also arrested the (P.P.) mayor of Torre Pacheco (Murcia), under roughly the same sort of charges.

Read more about it on Jim Simpsons blog (English member of Zurgena Council, and also member of the P.A.), Lenox, teleprensa.net or search on Google News.