Judge Yolanda Rueda has closed the isofoton case, that investigated the aid of the Junta de Andalucía to the Malaga energy company of the same name, after a formal defect for having extended the investigation for four months irregularly in 2017. The case multiplied its relevance a year and a half ago when the Anti-Corruption Prosecutor appointed the ministers María Jesús Montero and Luis Planas, as former Andalusian Health Councilors and Agriculture, Fisheries and the Environment, which granted an aid of 8.3 million to the Isofoton company in 2012. Now the investigations are stopped dead after the judge’s shelving, which benefits the 38 investigated, including four former Andalusian councilors of the Board.
The magistrate concludes the case to follow the criteria of the Seville Court, which excluded several investigated for that formal delay committed in 2017 by the Court of Instruction 3 of the Andalusian capital. “The Court considers that the first extension was extemporaneous as it was agreed four months after the expiration of the term determined by the complexity of the case. The consequence is the nullity and lack of validity of everything that has been done subsequently, ”says the order. [resolución motivada] of the judge last Monday, advanced this Wednesday by Seville Journal.
The case arose in 2015 to investigate the public aid for 80 million that the Malaga photovoltaic energy firm Isofoton received between 2005 and 2012, and to study whether the Board granted it knowing the poor economic situation of the company. In February 2021, Anticorruption required the minutes of the delegated commission for Economic Affairs that in 2012 modified an investment proposal for a loan to Isofoton for 8.3 million, a commission that included Montero, Planas and five other directors.
The loan was raised to the Governing Council of the Board due to its high amount and the Prosecutor’s Office was suspicious of the concession file because it indicated that the firm was not “in a crisis situation nor had it received public aid”, despite the fact that of the total of the 29.8 million of Isofoton’s debt, 29 million were guaranteed by the Board, “almost 100%”. In addition, the business plan of the Price Water House consultancy was not “verified” and was based on a “declaration of intent”, the Prosecutor’s Office censured.
There is now an appeal against the judge’s decision, but it has little chance of succeeding because ultimately it would be resolved by the Court, which is the body that has set the criteria for the irregular extension to investigate. The legal crack that the defenses have taken advantage of to knock down the case was detected by the lawyer Juan Carlos Alférez, of Constitución 23 litigation study. “Article 324 of the Law of Criminal Procedure, like any legal norm, responds to the protection of specific legal rights, in this case, the right of all citizens to have the criminal process carried out within reasonable time limits and that whoever enjoys the presumption of innocence is not subjected to the endless instructions that have been developing in our country for decades”, values the lawyer.
Among those investigated now excluded from the summary, in addition to the four former directors (Francisco Vallejo, Martín Soler, Manuel Recio and Antonio Ávila), are three former deputy directors, the former head of the legal services of the Board and the former director of promotion and Invercaria, Juan María González, nephew of Felipe González.
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