The prosecutor lowers his sentence request to two and a half years in prison by withdrawing the crime of subsidy fraud
He did it during the instruction and this Tuesday, already sitting on the bench, Pedro Antonio Sánchez repeated the strategy. The former regional president unloaded on the technicians each and every one of the controversial decisions that were made in the adjudication and construction process that took place around the theater-auditorium of Puerto Lumbreras and that have led him to sit on the bench for the ‘ Auditorium case. To questions from the anti-corruption prosecutor, Juan Pablo Lozano, the former head of the Murcian Government and former mayor of Puerto Lumbreras, repeated ad nauseam that he did not know all the details of the municipal file –including the content of the documents he signed– and emphasized that it was not its function to check those endpoints. “The mayor only sends the document,” he stressed. “It is the political impetus to get the funds.”
Sánchez’s statement at the trial of the case that ended up evicting him from San Esteban, five years ago, lasted for several hours. With apparent calm, Sánchez -who refused to answer the questions of the popular accusation, which represents PSOE and Podemos- discharged the responsibility on the municipal technicians and also on the director of the project, the architect Martín Lejarraga, also prosecuted in the cause. The former regional president reported that the two met at a cultural event that took place in Puerto Lumbreras and in which the architect would have been applauding the cultural offer of the municipality and putting on the table the need to house all these proposals in a building.
Sánchez maintained that the idea of building an auditorium in the town came from this professional and emphasized that he was never commissioned. “He, by professional initiative, proposed documents with ideas that he thought, but there was no commission,” he insisted before the magistrate Juan del Olmo, who presides over the court. “As there was no order, there was no contract, nor any payment.” The former head of the regional Executive also wanted to emphasize the little relationship that he, according to his version, had with the architect. «I did not dispatch with Mr. Lejarraga».
“The mayor only sends the document. It is the political impulse to obtain the funds»
Pedro Antonio Sanchez
Former regional president and former mayor of Puerto Lumbreras
The main defendant in the ‘Auditorium case’ had no choice but to assume, when questioned by the prosecutor, that the architect’s “ideas” were subsequently used to request a subsidy of up to six million euros from the Community. Sánchez stressed, however, that the document that the Consistory sent to the Ministry of Culture to claim that aid was not read and that he was unaware of its content. “It was not my role to check the City Council register and I did not audit the files.”
Regarding the plot next to the Nogalte boulevard where the auditorium theater was supposed to be located, the former mayor assured that this option was never considered. “The owners were not talked to because they never considered doing it there,” he defended.
An “anonymous” contest
In this way, the former Lumbrerense councilor ruled out that, as the accusations maintain, he simulated a contest with the apparent purpose of presenting projects to design and build the auditorium, despite the fact that it was allegedly already in charge of Lejarraga two years before. Sánchez defended tooth and nail a contest that, he assured, was transparent and anonymous and that it was not created to give legal coverage to the project. “I did not put my pencil in those bases,” he emphatically remarked. To the prosecutor’s question about why this procedure was dispatched in fifteen days and not in 52 days as was done ordinarily, he maintained that it was a time of excess work for the architects and that the speeding up of the procedure on that occasion was crucial. The defendant insisted, at this point, that up to three proposals disputed the award, which ended up in the hands of Lejarraga.
Throughout his speech, Sánchez tried to convince the court that the municipal file did not begin until the Ministry of Culture granted the subsidy, despite the fact that a preliminary draft and a project had allegedly been drawn up before. He admitted that the grant was awarded based on Lejarraga’s ideas, although he insisted that the real project was later developed in a different place.
«The architect, by professional initiative, proposed documents with ideas that he thought, but there was no commission»
Pedro Antonio Sanchez
Former regional president and former mayor of Puerto Lumbreras
When the Anti-Corruption Prosecutor questioned him about how it was possible that the press had published, already in 2006 and 2007, before the ideas contest was called, that the director of the project was going to be Lejarraga, Sánchez stressed that it was “advertising” and that «The Administration does not express itself with these publications».
«With the judicialization, nobody has dared to continue with the project. That auditorium has suffered a lot»
Pedro Antonio Sanchez
Former regional president and former mayor of Puerto Lumbreras
The former president of the Community also had to face, throughout the interrogation of the prosecutor, questions about the modified project, a variation that, supposedly, had to be undertaken due to the need to set the building back nine meters due to the existence of a road. The Prosecutor’s Office mentioned that the accusations indicate that this modification was used as an excuse, in order to justify the fact that the works were not going to be finished. The accused stated that “the councilor told me that there was a problem, a supervening cause”, and that he trusted the technical criteria. At this point, he said he was very disappointed that the Lumbrerense auditorium did not open its doors. “With the legalization of the work, no one has dared to continue with the project,” he stressed. “That auditorium has suffered a lot.”
The former regional president denies that the modification that prevented finishing the work was an excuse, it was due to “a supervening cause”
A lightened load
Sánchez arrived on time for his appointment with justice in one of the most anticipated hearings of recent times. He did it backed by his lawyer, José Antonio Choclán, a magistrate on leave from the National Court and a lawyer for stars like Cristiano Ronaldo. As soon as the hearing began, the load on the back of the former popular leader was lightened. The prosecutor announced his intention to withdraw the accusation that he maintained against Sánchez for a crime of subsidy fraud, given that a legal reform in force at that time prevented him from doing so. With this decision, to which the popular accusation, which represents PSOE and Podemos, was added, the request of the Prosecutor’s Office is reduced by two years. The former president also gets rid of the request for payment of a fine of six million euros – with six more months in prison in case of non-payment – that the Public Ministry had put on the table.
key issues
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Why the withdrawal of the crime of grant fraud?
The Anticorruption prosecutor, Juan Pablo Lozano, started the first day of the trial of the ‘Auditorium case’ with a surprise by announcing his decision to withdraw the crime of subsidy fraud of which he had been accusing the former regional president, Pedro Antonio Sánchez. The representative of the Public Ministry explained that a legal reform forced, between 2010 and 2019, that only individuals who may have acted badly before the Administration be accused of subsidy fraud. That reform, which is no longer in force nor was it before that date, prevents the prosecutor from accusing Sánchez, who acted as a representative of an administration for an alleged fraud against another administration, in this case, the Ministry of Culture. -
Sánchez’s defense tries to knock down part of the procedure
Pedro Antonio Sánchez’s lawyer yesterday endorsed the premise that there is no better defense than a good attack. The lawyer José Antonio Choclán, former magistrate of the National Court, brought out the heavy artillery and, in the process of provisional conclusions, tried to overthrow part of the case alleging that some of the administrative procedures that are being analyzed in the procedure were already endorsed by the contentious-administrative jurisdiction in a sentence of May 2012. This party, like the rest of the defenses that adhered to the petition, understands that the Criminal Judge -in this case the High Court- must be bound by that decision. The rapporteur magistrate, Mari Ángeles, rejected this request as a preliminary matter and will decide in the sentence on these and other matters. She advanced, however, that “res judicata in the criminal field is different than in other jurisdictions.” -
They maintain that several crimes are prescribed
The defense of Pedro Antonio Sánchez also tried to fight the prescription of some of the alleged crimes of prevarication of which the former president is accused. The lawyer stressed that one would have been committed in December 2006, when the draft was convened by the Local Government Board of the City Council, and that 11 years would have passed since the alleged commission of the crime until the date of initiation. The Court also postponed the decision on this request for sentencing, but noted that each crime does not prescribe separately when several facts are analyzed.
Prosecutor Lozano continues to demand, however, that the court sentence the former regional president for a crime of continued prevarication and another of fraud -in competition with prevarication-. At this time, he is requesting that he be sentenced to two years and six months in prison and 19 years and one day of disqualification from employment and public office. The representative of the Public Ministry contemplates, however, the possibility of ending up accusing Sánchez of an alleged crime of documentary falsification -as the popular accusation does, which requests three years in prison-. This crime could raise the final sentence request by the prosecutor up to five and a half years.
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