SPAIN’S LARGEST CORRUPTION TRIAL IS UNDERWAY

On Monday September 27 the Malaya corruption case centred on Marbella town hall was brought before the Málaga provincial court. It was over four years ago that the first arrests hit the head lines and in the dock will be 95 people in Spain’s largest corruption case in the history of the nation. Indeed a special annex has been built on to the Palacio de Justicia based on that used in Madrid for the “March 11 2004” terrorism trial.

The man said to be the mastermind behind this massive town planning scam is Juan Antonio Roca. He was the director of planning at Marbella town hall and the prosecution will attempt to prove that mayors, councillors, officials and businessmen were all involved in his web of corruption.

It is estimated by investigators that Roca personally received over 33 million euros between 2002 and 2006 from his illicit deals. He had been in the post since 1992, brought in by the late disgraced mayor Jesús Gil, and was there to his arrest in March 2006.

The 33 million euros is said to have come in payments to Roca from property developers over that four year period. Many of them will be alongside him in the dock. Five million of this total was passed on by Roca to various councillors at Marbella town hall.

Of those said to have benefitted most from his largesse the former mayor, Marisol Yagüe, received 1.8 million euros – the largest amount handed out. Former mayor Julián Muñoz is alleged to have received 162,000 euros whilst the deputy mayors Isabel García Marcos and Carlos Fernández pocketed lesser sums.

However whilst Roca is known to have received 33 million euros from property developers the prosecutor believes he had the opportunity to misappropriate another 200 million euros from1997 to 2005. In reality the true total will probably never be known. He money laundered vast amounts of cash to hide their origin and in the process bought estates, a boat, an aircraft, a helicopter, hotels, houses and works of art.

Missing from the dock will be three people. The aforementioned deputy mayor Carlos Fernández was walking the Camino de Santiago when the first arrests were carried out – and kept on walking. He is said to have entered Argentina on his own passport with Tunisia and Chile as his most likely resting places. Former councillor Francisco Javier Lendínez was last spotted in Tarifa and is believed to have fled to Portugal or Morocco. Finally the more shadowy figures of José Manuel Llorca Rodríguez who is also said to be involved in the Ballena Blanca money laundering case and the Fórum Filatélico stamp investment scam. Nothing is known of his whereabouts.

A quick guide to the story so far:

March 29 2006 – The town hall was raided with 21 people including Roca were arrested.

June 27 2006 – Judge Torres ordered a second wave of arrests with 31 detained.

November 13 2006 – The last major arrests with 11 held including the former wife of Julián Muñoz, Mayte Zaldivar and her brother.

May 1 2007 – Arrest of the famous singer Isabel Pantoja, the former lover of Julián Muñoz who now faces a separate money laundering trial.

March 29 2008 – Judge Pérez releases Roca from jail after two years of preventive detention which caused a huge row as he demands his job back at Marbella town hall.

April 23 2008 – a high court judge reactivates the Saqueo 1 case and sends Roca back to jail.

March 4 2009 – Pérez processes the case against 20 people and enlarges the charges against Roca and Muñoz.

October 15 2009 – The first pre-trial hearings are held.

September 27 2010 – The trial proper starts.

ESTEPONA: MONEY DOWN THE ANDORRA DRAIN

I have to file nine main news reports for the newspaper each week on the area from Fuengirola to Manilva and inland to Ronda. That is no problem – there is plenty of news about. What is a problem is that there are so many town hall corruption reports on Marbella and Estepona alone - largely in the Malaya and Astapa cases - that many weeks they could take up my full quota.

In recent months I have written many a report of the trials and tribulations of Estepona’s town hall and how that affects the residents. Schools have had no toilet paper or bleach. The fire brigade has most of its vehicles off the road as the town hall can’t afford to repair them. Municipal offices have had their phones and internet links cut off. The local police have had no fuel for their patrol cars. And so on because Estepona is bust.

Given that scenario I suspect the residents of Estepona, some of whom read this page, will be delighted to learn that over ten million euros of what they might consider as their money is sitting in a bank account in Andorra.

The funds are said to be those of the former director of town planning in Estepona between 2003 and 2007, Pedro López. It was hidden in accounts in the name of his family. According to the National Police the money comes from constructors who paid “commissions” to the town hall in order to have building licences granted. The accounts have now been blocked by the Andorra authorities.

Ironically López appeared before the Estepona court investigating the ‘Astapa’ town planning corruption case on Monday. The purpose of his visit was to enlarge on the testimony he gave on first being arrested on June 17, 2008. It would be interesting to know if he commented on the discovery of the Andorra funds. For now we will not know as judge Jesús Torres is maintaining the secrecy clamp down so we will have to wait to the case finally comes to trial.

There is a backlog of corruption cases waiting to be heard in the Málaga provincial court. First up is Ballena Blanca, then Malaya this April or May – the latter being the biggest corruption case in Spain’s history, which is saying something. So Astapa will have to wait its turn – but for the people of Estepona seeking justice for their embattled town that day cannot come soon enough.

HOW CORRUPT CAN YOU GET? SOMALIA

Transparency International has issued its world corruption league table for 2008 and Somalia comes bottom of the list. It will be no surprise to learn that Myanmar, Iraq, Afghanistan and Zimbabwe are close rivals for this dubious honour.

The least corrupt country is Denmark with the UK coming in at 16 and the USA at 18. Spain slips from 22 to 28 in its rankings sharing that spot with Qatar plus Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, which sounds like a 50s pop group.

TI indicates that corruption is widespread in Spain. It affects most the political parties followed by the private sector, then Parliament, the media and lastly public employees and the legal system.

TI says its Global Corruption Report 2009: Corruption and the Private Sector (GCR) shows “how corrupt practices constitute a destructive force that undermines fair competition, stifles economic growth and ultimately undercuts a business’s own existence.”

In the case of Spain it is the town planning scandals that have seen its rating drop – a situation that will surprise few Spaniards or foreign residents living in the country. This was confirmed by Jesús Lizcano, TI’s president in Spain who singled out town planning as the principal cause of corruption in his country.

In presenting the document Lizcano said that some laws had been introduced to help in the fight against corruption but conceded there were still major deficiencies. He pointed to the 2007 law on the financing of political parties that had progressive measures prohibiting secret donations.

However he added that local parties were not sufficiently integrated in to the accounting system of the central organisations so illicit payments could still be made at that level.

In addition the law governing the issuing of contracts in the public sector had not yet incorporated the new directives laid down by the European Parliament and Council. Indeed the system of adjudicating contracts for works, services and supplies needed global reform in Spain.

It should be stressed that it was not all negative news. Towards the end of 2007 the Guardia Civil formed a special unit to tackle town planning crime and its investigations are bearing fruit. TI also recognised that Spain was improving its legal capacity to tackle corruption and this was largely due to international accords although it was noted that Spain had not yet ratified its civil and criminal conventions on corruption brought in by the Council of Europe.

To visit the TI website and to view the league table click here.

KEEN EYED PROSPERO & JULIÁN MUÑOZ

Yesterday was Wednesday so I met with my good friend Prospero for cud chewing in Jimena’s Bar Vecina.

Despite my many years my body is still a temple. By comparison Prospero is long of tooth but has a keener eye thanks to his bifocals. Hence whilst I chomped on my mollete con jamón y tomate he espied two men, one with a camera and another with a microphone.

By chance as we left the bar so did they. It was then that we noticed that the microphone was that of Antena Tres, one of Spain’s major TV stations. As they headed for Antonio’s Bar with Prospero in hot pursuit I went off to buy a bottle of sheep dip for the dogs – don’t ask!

In due course my phone rang – it was Prospero with the full story. Apparently they were on the hunt for the former mayor of Marbella, Julián Muñoz, who was rumoured to be on the prowl in our neck of Los Alcornocales national park.

Needless to say there is more to that side of the tale but I shall leave it to the ‘prensa rosa’ to bring it to you. ‘La prensa rosa’ is Spain’s answer to the News of the World and Sunday People except in also takes in magazines and various TV programmes on the major channels.

So who is Julián Muñoz? Well if you don’t already know let me explain.

Julián was a GIL councillor in Marbella when the corrupt Jesus Gil y Gil ruled that roost. When the fat man stood down he pushed Muñoz in to his place until he was disposed by Marisol Yagüe before soon after the corruption shit hit the judicial fan.

During his spell as mayor Julián started a public dalliance with the celebrated singer Isabel Pantoja. He then dumped his wife and set-up house with Pantoja in a property that yet may be revealed to have been acquired illegally.

Now Muñoz is a convicted criminal having been jailed for various town planning offences whilst a GIL councillor or mayor. I believe there are another 100 such cases in the pipeline although the prosecutor is desperate to do a deal so that the courts won’t be clogged up to kingdom come. He is currently a third level detainee, which allows him to spend most of his time out of jail and Julián has a job as the manager of a beach bar in San Pedro de Alcántara close to Marbella.

Early next year the court case surrounding the Malaya corruption scandal at Marbella town hall will start in Málaga at the Palacio de Justicia. This will be the largest such case in Spain’s history and many of the procedures installed in Madrid for the March 11 terrorism trial will be used in Málaga.

In the dock will be Juan Antonio Roca, the former director of town planning in Marbella, who is the alleged mastermind in the case involving hundreds of millions of euros, international money laundering, bribery, fraud –you name it. One of those in the dock with Roca will be Muñoz who if convicted will be washing dishes for many years to come in prison and not glad-handing the public on Marbella’s seafront.

Why is Muñoz’s presence in Jimena bad news for the small rural community? Well when Roca was arrested it was at one of his many houses – this one being in Jimena that as it turned out had been illegally built. So apart from the fact that Muñoz is a convicted felon he is a reminder of the times when certain people in power in Jimena flirted with the black money bags on the Costa del Sol and would have sold their souls (and our green and pleasant land) for a crock of fool’s gold.

HOW CORRUPT IS YOUR TOWN HALL?

Many town halls in Spain, such as the Ayuntamiento de Marbella where Jesús Gil held court, are mired in sleaze. So how do you tell the good from the bad?

Sadly the legal profession in Marbella is also involved in corrupt practices – there were three further arrests last week for money laundering on behalf of the Russian mafia – however a lawyer in the town, José Cosín, has launched “El Corruptómetro” where people can check the standing and transparency of their local political parties and town hall.

He has used the template laid out by Transparencia Internacional – a NGO dedicated to combating corruption, which in Spain is headed by the respected lawyer Antonio Garrigues Walker. It establishes 33 questions that have to be answered to determine where the local parties and town halls stand on a scale of transparency and anti corruption.

The information can be accessed by the public by consulting the website at: http://www.corruptometro.es/ In the rankings for 2008 the city of Bilbao is the most transparent in Spain. At the foot of the list are Orihuela and Torrevieja who both receive a score of zero out of a possible 100.

Go to the website and you can check out your town hall for yourself although only the larger municipalities are currently covered. It also lists councillors that are deemed to be corrupt and gives visitors the opportunity to place their gradings. It makes interesting reading!

CORRUPTION PROBE HITS MAJOR POLITICIANS

The corruption probe led by Spain’s famous judge Baltazar Garzón involving businessmen with ties to the Partido Popular has entered a new phase.

On Wednesday in a legal document Garzón indicated there was the possibility of national politicians being implicated. To date only local PP politicians have been fingered by the judge.

Garzón, for now, is not naming any names but that has not stopped media speculation. Politicians who have appeared in print in El País and other newspapers include the PP’s treasurer Luis Barcena and European Parliament MP Gerardo Galeote. Earlier the judge formally denied that a senior PP politician from Valencia was under suspicion as reported by El País but gave no such solace to Barcena.

The PP is of course fighting back. It has filed a complaint Garzón alleging “corrupt practices.” Garzón himself has asked prosecutors if he should be removed from the case as he is sits in the National Audience, Spain's highest criminal court that is technically not competent to investigate Spanish politicians and lawmakers.

The investigation has also embroiled the ruling PSOE government. The PP criticised the former justice minister, Mariano Fernández Bermejo, for going on a hunting trip with Garzón – the politician resigned his post on Monday.

One of the first arrests several weeks ago was of Francisco Correa at his home in Sotogrande in San Roque. The entrepreneur organised PP events and it is alleged he is behind dodgy building permits and other lucrative contracts awarded by PP municipal councils in Madrid, Valencia and elsewhere.

All of this will take British and indeed US readers by surprise because the tradition in those countries is for the judiciary and the political worlds to keep themselves at arms length. Indeed, the judges and law makers are more often than not at each others throats rather than sharing lunch on shooting parties. The White House has often been at odds with the Supreme Court, even though the President chooses its judges, and the High Court in London has often rattled the cage of the Prime Minister and his cohorts.

The problem in Spain is that although everybody accepts politicians are corrupt the judges are in danger of now being viewed as political rather than judicial – or perhaps they always were.

COULD THERE BE ANOTHER 23F?

Yesterday, February 23, is engraved for ever in the Spanish mind as 23F. It is the name given to the failed coup d’état that started on 23 February 1981 and ended the next day on 24 February 1981.

It is also known as El Tejerazo from the name of its most visible figure, Guardia Civil Antonio Tejero, who conducted the most notable event of the coup by storming into the Congress of Deputies with a group of 200 of his fellow armed officers during the election of Leopoldo Calvo Sotelo as the new Prime Minister.

It was also the time when Spain’s King, Juan Carlos I, cemented his place in the nation’s hearts by giving a nationally televised address denouncing the coup and urging the upholding of the law and the democratically elected government.

As a result of the monarch’s decisive intervention against the uprising the coup soon collapsed. After holding the Parliament and cabinet hostage for 18 hours the hostage-takers surrendered the next morning and nobody had been harmed physically at least.

This year is the 28 th anniversary of the coup attempt. A number of television channels have chosen this anniversary to broadcast dramatisations of the events of 23F.

A sobering fact is that today as in 1981 Spain is in a state of crisis. Then there was 20 per cent unemployment plus 16 per cent inflation. It is a sign of Spain’s democratic maturity that those problems are now tackled by its politicians at home and in international forums rather than through the waving of guns.

But, yes there’s always one of my buts, what if the people of Spain finally become fed up with their corrupt politicians? What if they despair of being shunted from one corrupt administration to the next at national, regional and local level? What if the politicians do not clean up their mutual act? Then the successors of Tejero may again take up arms. Then Juan Carlos or a future King Felipe might not have the will or the ability to talk down a coup. Then the democracy, which so many Spaniards fought so hard to win, might be smashed by another Tejero – the tile maker. What then?

UP THE GIL TO GAUCÍN

The 1990s were the years of the GIL era on the Costa del Sol. Marbella’s maverick mayor, the late Jesús Gil y Gil, made the streets of the jet set resort safe to walk whilst the criminals were emptying the town hall’s coffers.

Gil and GIL eventually brought Marbella to its knees. His cohorts elsewhere on the coast carried out similar hatchet jobs on towns such as Estepona, where the son of Jesús ruled.

Up the hill in Gaucín they did not need Jesús Gil as they had Francisco Corbacho. The local doctor turned mayor won election in 1999 as an independent but was supported by first PSOE and then the Partido Andalucista.

After the last local elections PSOE and the Partido Popular formed a coalition to keep Corbacho out. This unlikely alliance soon unravelled and last September Francisco Ruíz split ranks with the PP, was installed as mayor backed by the Partido Andalucista, with – surprise, surprise – Corbacho as his deputy and the power behind his throne.

Eventually the wheels of justice have caught up with Corbacho. He escaped a jail term but was barred from office for misappropriating town hall funds and obstructing justice. He was able to continue as a councillor (and deputy mayor) whilst his case went to appeal. The higher court upheld the original decision and last week he finally resigned.

Now it emerges that the Málaga prosecutor is seeking an 18 month jail term and a ten year bar from holding office for Corbacho. Also implicated in the case is the municipal architect Francisco Arenas who faces the same penalties along with councillors, past and present, three from the current PA ruling group.

The case revolves around the issuing of ten licences by the mayor and the architect to build on land that is zoned as non-urban. The architect is involved because it is alleged that he approved of the issuing of the licences even though they infringed the planning law.

The news broke days after the socialist opposition at Gaucín town hall denounced the Partido Popular mayor, Francisco Ruíz, for allowing two large mansions to be built on rustic land both owned by PA councillors. One is a house of 400 square metres that is being constructed for a family member of - Francisco Corbacho.

Slowly but surely justice is catching up with Corbacho. A resident of Gaucín told me that when he made alterations to his home he had to make a payment to the mayor – I am sure it was for a legal licence! I also remember his father in despair when he had to mortgage his farm home to raise the money to back pay Corbacho’s municipal debt.

I have raised this matter before because when living in the neighbouring municipality I supported the Partido Andalucista as it stood up against the local socialist ‘mismanagement’. Now I would vote for Izquierda Unida as both PSOE and the PA locally are tainted with corruption. Here lies the problem. I accept politicians are human but when all parties seemingly act illegally eventually you loose faith in democracy. When that time comes, then the options are very dangerous indeed.

(To whom it may concern – Gil is pronounced Hill in English)

A CORRUPT NEW YEAR

As we look back on 2008 and towards 2009 one fact is clear –corruption is alive and well and living amongst us.

You might argue that the world economic crisis is what occupies peoples’ minds at this time. True it is. However it was born of corruption in the financial sector in the USA from selling dodgy mortgages to the multi million dollar Ponzi scam of Bernard Madoff. It was then seen to spread around the world of greedy bankers and financiers aided and abetted by their political friends. Banks were hurriedly bailed out not so that they could help mortgage owners or embattled small companies but so that their bonuses, golden handshakes and company jets would stay airborne.

In Spain corruption is the sad norm. Voto en Blanco has touched on the tendency to corruption in the current PSOE administration looking back to the years of Aznar and González. It observes:

“Aznar pudo haber demostrado con su mandato que su partido era mejor y distinto que el corrupto PSOE de Felipe González, al que sustituyó en el gobierno en 1996, pero hizo justamente lo contrario, demostrando que ambos partidos eran similares, obsesionados con el poder, inclinados hacia la corrupción, incapaces de regenerar la democracia degradada, ambos interviniendo la Justicia, coartando la libertad de los diputados, partidarios de las listas cerradas, mintiendo desde el poder e incumpliendo las promesas electorales.”

This corruption in Spanish life has affected expats living in this country. However far more have lost their homes, life savings and future hopes at the hands of criminal financial advisors and investment companies who are British and prey on the weak and gullible amongst their own community.

There is no reason to believe that 2009 will be any different. The omens are not good.

A happy New Year!

DOWN TO A FINE ART

I stay today on the subject of corruption.

Yesterday I touched on the ‘Astapa’ scandal in Estepona. Today I move one municipality to the east and arrive in Marbella home to the “Ballena Blanca”, “Hidalgo” and “Malaya” corruption and money laundering cases.

The biggest of these is “Malaya” and it is also the most important as it involves the defrauding of the town hall and the people of Marbella rather than just common or garden fraud, money laundering etc.

Now the alleged mastermind behind the “Malaya” scam is Juan Antonio Roca – the one time director of town planning at the town hall. The judge in the case, Óscar Pérez , has decreed that the money raised from the sale of the 415 works of art held by Roca can be used to pay off his huge 6.3 million euros debt to the tax authority, Hacienda.

Two things concern me about this.

First, not being an art expert, I know that valuing and establishing the authenticity of a painting or sculpture is a very difficult business. Indeed works of art that Roca owned that were deemed priceless now turn out to be copies. So how does the tax authority know it is actually getting value for its owed money?

Second, and far more fundamental, is the fact that these art pieces were probably purchased from Roca’s ill-gotten gains from the town of Marbella. Therefore if they are to be sold off surely the money should go towards paying off Marbella’s huge debts that are crippling the town.

The legacy of the GIL, post-GIL and alleged Roca corruption will be with the people of Marbella for many years to come. Thousands are living in homes bought in good faith that are deemed illegal –some will even be demolished. If there is any money to be recouped (and there is any justice) it should first go to easing the burden on the people of Marbella – the government can wait its turn, but it won’t.

DOES SPAIN NEED ANOTHER FRANCO?

In recent weeks some informed discussion websites have taken up the theme of is Spain in need of another Franco?

In many ways this is a discussion solely for Spaniards and really the key input has to come from those who lived under ‘Franquismo’. In the same way that a debate in Italy on the need for another Mussolini has to be confined to its nationals.

For instance in Britain we say that Mussolini could be credited with making the trains run on time. However only an Italian who lived through those years could say whether that was fact or fiction.

The debate on strong leadership normally comes when times are difficult such as now. When the going is easy the people have other less weighty matters on their mind.

There has always been those on the far right in Spain who yearn for the discipline of ‘Franquismo’ whilst those on the far left call for a return of the ‘republic’ regime. In normal times the vast majority of voters sit in the centre and hence keep their nations on the democratic straight and narrow. However these are not normal times and the swing in Germany in the 1930s behind Nazism should be held in mind.

Whatever nostalgia may remain in Spain for Franco and ‘Franquismo’ we have to remember its counterpoint when the Guardia Civil was feared by one and all with repression the key to keeping power.

The current level of corruption in Spain at a government and institutional level is one factor that has those who favour ‘Franquismo’ yearning for the past. Don’t be fooled, the Franco regime thrived on corruption, the only difference is that it was applied by just one section of society but today is enjoyed across the political spectrum.

As Britons we’d be fools to believe we are above such underhand dealings. In the 2008 Corruption List produced by Berlin based Transparency International the UK slipped to 16 th with a score of 7.7 with Spain 28 th on 6.5.

Chandrashekhar Krishan, Transparency International’s Executive Director, points to Britain’s ‘wretched and woeful record’ in prosecuting businessmen who pay bribes to foreign politicians and officials to win contracts. Sounds all too familiar to me. Bring back Churchill I say.