An Estepona court has opened an investigation following a complaint directed by a City Council official, currently on leave for psychological reasons, against Mayor José María García Urbano (PP), whom he accuses of various events that occurred between March 2022 and June 2023 that would have violated their sexual freedom. The complaint was filed on October 23 and admitted for processing this Monday, October 28, by the investigating court number 5.
Judicial sources confirm the opening of the investigation for an alleged crime of sexual harassment, and assure that “for the moment” the only procedure agreed upon by the investigating judge is the taking of the complainant’s statement at an early date. “Then, based on the evidence of crime that can be collected, the next steps to be taken will be decided.” That is, the continuation of the investigation with the practice of new procedures or its archiving.
Through a statement, the mayor claims to be a “victim of a false complaint”: “The campaign to damage the personal dignity and career of the mayor and the position he holds with a single and clearly spurious purpose is inadmissible and unfair.”
According to this text, the mayor has commissioned a team of lawyers to appear in the procedure “in order to request that he be heard, voluntarily and as soon as possible, to highlight the absolute lack of foundation of said complaint”.
Report threats of losing your job
The complaint reveals a relationship that, according to the complainant, had been forced by García Urbano under the threat that, if he did not agree, his job would be in jeopardy.
“With the threat of losing his job, García Urbano “invited” a City Council official to have sexual relations under all types of perversions,” states a press release issued by the lawyer of the alleged victim, Antonio Granados, filed in Córdoba just like the alleged victim.
The lawyer has assured elDiario.es Andalucía that there are messages and documentary evidence that would prove the facts from shortly after the official, a local police officer, arrived in Estepona from Córdoba, without actually showing them.
In the complaint, to which EFE has had access, it is reported that the councilor contacted the police agent daily to satisfy his sexual desires. According to this story, the alleged victim began working at the City Council in March 2022 as a trainee official and from the first moment he felt that the mayor “was looking for a libidinous intention towards him.” The complainant maintains “that he had no other option but to agree to the mayor’s sexual pretensions” since he was “afraid of losing his job,” because García Urbano supposedly always made it clear to him, according to that complaint cited by EFE.
Surprise in the union
The union section of the Malaga Public Employees Union (Sepma) in the Estepona City Council has shown its “deep surprise” at the complaint presented by this municipal official. “Until this moment, we had no knowledge of the alleged events, even though the employee in question was a member of this union in the period in which said acts allegedly occurred.”
Likewise, they have expressed their “perplexity” at the fear of the possible expulsion of the body, since such a process “is subject to a regulated, extremely strict and detailed procedure, in which numerous guarantees must be met.” In its note, the union states that during the time he served, the official engaged in “inappropriate conduct outside of his working hours, which has required the intervention of another security body.”
Feijoo, on the case of the mayor of Algeciras: “Any complaint must be investigated”
The judicial investigation into this matter involving García Urbano, until not long ago one of the flagship mayors of the PP thanks to his spectacular absolute majorities, and former vice president of the Spanish Federation of Municipalities and Provinces, occurs in the midst of the political storm over the Errejón Case, and adds to another matter of a sexual nature in the popular ranks that has forced Alberto Núñez Feijóo himself to intervene. The complaint against García Urbano was filed two days before the Errejón Case broke out.
The leader of the PP revealed this morning that the party asked José Ignacio Landaluce, mayor of Algeciras, for explanations for an alleged case of sexual harassment against two councilors of the City Council, and settled the matter with the response of the accused. “Any type of complaint,” he said, “must be investigated.” “Of course yes,” he assured, before warning that he does not “put his hand in the fire for anyone.”
Feijoo has also highlighted the importance of reporting to the “police station” in the face of anonymous complaints on Instagram. In the case of Estepona, the complaint, with name and surname, has been filed directly before a court.
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