The judge of the ‘Azud case’ has refused to file with Esmeralda Orero, a senior municipal official of Valencia, the investigation of the branch of the case related to the exchange to supposedly deliver several building plots to a company owned by businessman Jaime Febrer, in exchange for It assumed a million-dollar debt that the consistory maintained with various religious congregations. The defense of the official, currently head of the Patrimonial Liability service, requested the free dismissal of the case as there was, in her opinion, no “act criminally attributable” to Orero and there was “documentary proof of null participation in the events.” as this newspaper reported. After the partial lifting of the secrecy of the rogatory commissions, requested from the United States, Switzerland and Panama, Orero’s defense considers that the events do not affect the veteran official, nicknamed the “Black Spider.” However, the anti-corruption prosecutor, Pablo Ponce, maintains that in the current phase of the investigation “it cannot be accommodated” Orero’s request for dismissal.
Anti-corruption remembers, in a written in advance by The Provinces and to which this newspaper has also had access, that the investigation of the ‘Azud case’ was recently extended, so “procedures continue to be carried out” and, in addition, the reports from the Central Operational Unit (UCO) of the Civil Guard ” They are not exhausted either.”
The prosecutor considers that the instruction “remains in force” for all those investigated in the case. The partial lifting of the secrecy of the rogatory commissions “has nothing to do with the completion of the investigation or with the carrying out of the pending proceedings,” adds the letter from the Anti-Corruption Prosecutor’s Office.
The substitute of the Investigative Court number 13 of Valencia, in an order dated January 13, endorses the position of the Public Ministry “for the same reasons” set forth by the prosecutor. The instructor shares the Anti-Corruption criteria and remembers that the Provincial Court of Valencia resolved on September 11 that the investigations should continue.
The judge recently agreed to a new extension of the investigation, still pending the statements of those investigated and various police reports, which “could well provide new evidence of criminality” against the senior official of the Valencia City Council “or other people related to her.” ”. “Or maybe not,” adds the judge.
The instructor considers Esmeralda Orero’s request for dismissal to be “hasty”, which should be “examined” in any case “once the entire body of evidence has been compiled and can be resolved on the merits based on the indications of criminality that in that final procedural moment exists.”
Two witnesses who testified in the case indicated that the official was a person of the utmost confidence of Mayor Rita Barberá. The UCO of the Civil Guard suspects, for its part, that the person under investigation could have delivered municipal documentation to businessman Jaime Febrer, one of the main investigators of the ‘Azud case’, in relation to the alleged ‘schools operation’, one of the many branches of the complex cause.
On the contrary, the official alleged that she had no participation in the events nor did she receive gifts or money from the alleged plot and regretted having suffered “public ridicule” and a “parallel media trial.”
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