The judge calls to declare Nacho Cano as a defendant in the case of the musical Malinche

The judge investigating Nacho Cano for the false scholarship recipients of the musical Malinche has decided to call the producer and musician to testify on December 20. The magistrate explains that to date she has sought to avoid the “bench penalty” but that at this point it is appropriate to hear her statement along with three other defendants, in addition to the police officers who investigated the case and the testimony of the interns who are in Mexico via videoconference. The judge also rejects the defenses’ request to archive the case.

It is the latest move by the judge who has been investigating for months whether Nacho Cano, founder of the group Mecano and music producer, fraudulently brought several young dancers from Mexico to Spain to work as false scholarship holders in the musical Malinche. Cano had already been charged in the case for several months but, for now, the investigating judge had not called him to testify, taking a statement for the moment only from the intern who reported the case.

The judge regrets in her order that a “malicious delay” has been attributed to her in the management of the case when, she explains, she has already taken a statement from the complainant in the case and has encountered serious difficulties in getting other interns who no longer testify. They are located in Spain. If it has taken so long to call Cano to testify, he affirms, it has been to avoid “the bench penalty” until it was inevitable.

Also included in the battery of statements are three Cano collaborators who are called to appear under investigation. They will also have to testify, although as witnesses, the two police officers who directed the investigation as well as a person responsible for training the “alleged scholarship recipients” of the musical, a representative of the Casa de México Foundation, the person from the hostel where they were staying as well as several of the injured scholarship holders.

In parallel to this procedure followed against Cano and some of his collaborators in the musical Malinche, another court has charged the intern whose complaint originated the case with threats. The dancer Leslie Guadalupe will appear this December 12 as a defendant in another judicial proceeding in which she is accused of having threatened to sue those responsible for the musical if they did not pay her 6,000 euros and give her a letter of recommendation a year ago.