The resolution also orders that the defendants and civil servants be required to post a bail amounting to a total of 16.25 million euros.
The head magistrate of the Court of Instruction number 2 of Murcia, in a car notified this Thursday, opens an oral trial for crimes against the environment against businessmen, administrators or managers of 37 agricultural companies, for polluting discharges into the Mar Menor from the use of desalinizers illegal in the Campo de Cartagena.
In addition, this main case will also be prosecuted for environmental prevarication due to omission of mandatory inspections regarding the former Minister of Agriculture Antonio Cerdá and the former Water Commissioner Manuel Aldeguer. For which the prosecutor requests 1 year and 9 months in prison, a fine of 16 months with a daily fee of 12 euros and special disqualification from holding public office for 9 years. Requests for sentences that raise both the procedural representation of Greenpeace Spain and that of Ecologists in Action, ANSE, and the Spanish Society of Ornithology SEO / Birdlife.
The resolution also orders that the defendants and civil servants be required to post a bail amounting to a total of 16.25 million euros, “with a warning to seize assets.” Finally, the instructor, after declaring the Provincial Court of Murcia, as the competent body for the prosecution of the case, establishes that the defendants be summoned to present their defense briefs.
On the other hand, the instructor dismisses eight appeals for reform filed by the procedural representation of different investigated and that are essentially based on the fact that there are not sufficient indications of a crime with respect to their clients, the lack of jurisdiction of the court for the investigation or that they request the nullity of proceedings for infraction and violation of the defense rights of the investigated parties.
Likewise, it again denies the request for evidence to be sent ex officio to Onda Regional so that they can send a full copy of the interview conducted with the Superior Prosecutor because it is not considered relevant for the investigation of the case and its completion. Nor does the magistrate consider it appropriate to request the communities of regents to verify the authenticity of certain documentation and report on the volumes of water supplied, requested by another party.
Finally, regarding the allegation of lack of reasons for the order regarding the specific intervention of one of the farms in the current state of the Mar Menor, the instructor clarifies that “the presence of the investigated party in the procedure does not bring direct cause of having caused damage to the Mar Menor, but to carry out a discharge of brine from an unauthorized desalination activity that can substantially or seriously affect the environment. The question of the damage to the Mar Menor and its quantification will be relevant when correctly qualifying the imputed conduct and determining the applicable criminal type. And he insists that “this proceeding is not a general case on each and every one of the factors that may have influenced the deterioration of the lagoon, since it would be an incomprehensible issue, having focused on the actions of certain political and agricultural companies.
instruction extension
Regarding the second piece, recently split, the instructor dismisses in a resolution the appeals filed against the order that agreed to the extension of the proceedings due to lack of jurisdiction of the court number 2 of Murcia. The magistrate insists on the need for it due to the complexity of the actions that had to be carried out and the short time remaining for the expiration of the instruction period and recalls that this resolution was prior to the inhibition.