One of the complainants of the alleged political and urban irregularities in Estepona (Málaga, 71,925 inhabitants) between 2003 and 2007, David Valadez, assured this Wednesday that the retired Commissioner José Manuel Villarejo had nothing to do with the investigation. His involvement is “absolutely non-existent,” he said this morning during the trial in the so-called Astapa case. Villarejo’s shadow follows a trial whose main defendant is the then mayor of the city of Malaga, Antonio Barrientos, who appeared in court this Tuesday to ensure that “there were no irregularities” during his tenure. He also stressed that where there were “anomalies” the police investigations were made; The exedile focuses on the retired commissioner as the alleged mastermind of the entire plot that ended with him in prison and Valadez later in the mayor’s office.
Barrientos’ statement served to launch Tuesday’s test phase and testimonies of the Astapa trial, the last major case against urban corruption on the Costa del Sol. He is investigating an alleged plot dedicated to underestimating the many agreements that urban development projects were promoted in Estepona between 2003 and 2007 in order to finance both the political parties and the town hall itself, in addition to enriching several members of the organization. There are fifty defendants being tried for the crimes of untruth, fraud, embezzlement, bribery, subterfuge and influence-peddling. Among them, the former mayor of Barrientos is one of the most prominent; The public prosecutor’s office is asking for a prison sentence of ten years and nine months. His defense, like that of the other individuals investigated, focused on Villarejo’s role as the alleged mastermind of the conspiracy.
The investigation is of such caliber – there are 128 main volumes with 351,114 pages and 646 pieces of documentary – that the trial was divided into ten thematic blocks and the prosecutor himself, Valentín Bueno, first opened up the possibility of developing another one based on the concentrated origin of the investigation to clarify whether Villarejo had anything to do with it. The Malaga Provincial Court rejected this in an order of February 23, but also overturned the wiretapping underlying the case, saying the order was not sufficiently reasoned and was neither “necessary” nor “ideal”.
This decision empties a case that is being tried 15 years after it began and court sources stressed that it was being watered down due to its complexity and delay. “I am convinced that it will end well,” said Barrientos this Tuesday before entering Room 4 of the City of Justice in Malaga, where the first of the blocks focused on actions related to urban discipline began. At the court door, he assured that he really wanted to speak, although in his testimony he did not address any of the parties and only manifested himself through an appearance in which he defended his innocence.
“There was no irregularity and less from a penal point of view in matters of urban discipline,” said the former councilor, who assured in his speech that the urban planning area then headed by Mayor María del Carmen Miralles was “defective” at the time. However, he stated: “No technician has ever received suggestions, proposals, and even less pressure from the city council or from anyone else.” In turn, he focused on the police investigation “in which there was no discipline due to his actions with several irregularities and anomalies that do not comply with the rule of law”, referring to Villarejo’s alleged role.
That role was disputed by one of the key witnesses, David Valadez, who, alongside being Barriento’s successor in the mayor’s office, was also the one who filed the complaint that led to the investigation. He answered all of the questions asked at Wednesday’s meeting. “The involvement of the now famous and well-known Commissioner José Manuel Villarejo in the genesis or origin of the case is absolutely non-existent,” said Valadez – as reported by Europa Press – who has realized that he only met him “much later”. through his brother, parish priest in Estepona, and that he only had coffee with him. “It’s hard to believe” that he and Villarejo maneuvered “to stage a conspiracy in 2006” to elect him mayor “because they would assume that you can guess”.
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“We were tired of denouncing what was happening at all levels of our party without the slightest attention being paid to us,” said Valadez, who filed the complaint in front of the UDEF in Madrid, accompanied by then-Socialist councilor Cristina Rodriguez. He did it this way, he said, to avoid possible leaks if he did it in Malaga. However, for Barrientos’ defence, it is one of the keys, which he says allegedly implicates Villarejo in the conspiracy. “He achieved what he wanted: to have a clear influence on the urban planning of Estepona and to carry out a manipulation of the investigation through the influence of UDEF officials,” said María Gutiérrez, Barrientos’ lawyer, in January. There is no end date for the process yet, although its scale and complexity suggest it will continue through the summer.
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