The Prosecutor’s Office has maintained the request for two years and ten months in prison and ten years of disqualification for the mayor of Badalona, Xavier García Albiol, for a crime of prevarication for having allowed the installation of two illegal antennas in the city, although it has withdrawn the indictment against two other defendants.
This was announced by the prosecutor in the penultimate session of the trial being held in the Barcelona Court against the former mayor and which will be heard this Wednesday for sentencing. Together with Albiol, the prosecutor has maintained the requests for two years and ten months in prison and ten months of disqualification for the former director of a public company in Badalona for the installation without a license of two telephone antennas on municipal land in 2012 that were not removed. until 2018.
The Public Ministry also requests that the companies Vodafone and Movistar be condemned as civilly liable for profit for the installation of the antennas and that they compensate the council with around 17,000 euros for unpaid fees. In addition, they claim another 8,300 from Vodafone for having connected to the electricity grid to install the antenna without paying any amount.
On the other hand, the prosecutor has withdrawn the accusation against the former Badalona Security councilor Miguel Jurado, now PP councilor in Santa Coloma de Gramenet (Barcelona) and the Urban Planning councilor during the leftist government of Badalona, Oriol Lladó. In less than ten seconds, which it took for the prosecutor to formalize the withdrawal of the accusation, both defendants have been acquitted of a case in which they remained accused for almost five years.
The almost two weeks of trial have served for the accusations and defense to reaffirm their respective thesis, although the accusations against Jurado and Lladó have clearly been dismantled. The most striking case has been that of Lladó, who despite remembering throughout the investigation that he did not have the powers to order the removal of antennas, it was not until the end of the oral hearing that he was able to be exonerated.
The Prosecutor’s Office accuses Albiol because, in his first stage as mayor (when the antennas were installed) he maintained the powers in Urban Planning without delegating them to a councilor. This implies, in the opinion of the Public Ministry, that Albiol “allowed or authorized by de facto means and without ever issuing an express resolution” the installation of the two telephone antennas on municipal land next to a police station.
In his statement as a defendant this Monday, Albiol shook off his responsibilities in the case. “I was not involved in legality control,” he argued, in addition to ensuring that in 2012 he did not find out about the installation of the antennas and that he only did so in 2018, when he learned through the press that the Prosecutor’s Office had begun to investigate. .
Albiol’s line of defense, represented by lawyer Cristóbal Martell, involves disengaging from monitoring the installation of antennas as well as the specific processing of licenses due to his greater “political dedication” as mayor. The issue of the antennas, the defense argues, was “unattainable” due to the large volume of matters to be managed as mayor.
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