The Vice-Prosecutor for the Environment of Córdoba, María Eugenia Bautista, warned against “the emergence of numerous package“in many provincial municipalities, notably Sierra de Córdoba during the presentation of the Public Prosecutor’s Report this Friday at the Cité de la Justice.
Bautista exposed this problem, which is why he requested special assistance from the municipalities of the province, which are those who know their territory best, recalling that “the procedures for offenses against territorial planning are undoubtedly the more numerous” and the most frequent. complaints from people received in this environmental unit of the prosecutor’s office.
In this sense, the delegated prosecutor in the matter assured that “as a novelty in 2023, we have witnessed an explosion of illegal housing developments, which we no longer saw in the Prosecutor’s Office since 2012, – I only witnessed one complaint for illegal housing development which was quickly stopped – and since the pandemic, helped by the economic boom in which we live, not only irregular constructions but also more serious behavior fragmentation because it is this which will subsequently allow these irregular constructions to proliferate.
However in the municipal area of Córdoba He clarified that they have not observed the proliferation of irregular settlements, but in this territorial area there is particular concern about irregular constructions that do not stop, even in Córdoba, in the region of Sierra. According to him, this is particularly worrying, “because there is also a declared normative danger of extreme fire and the successive atomization of the environment brings a greater risk.”
Bautista emphasized that in the Cordoba parquet They have also witnessed a notable increase in planning crimes. “There was a turning point in 2020 where the Supreme Court “it is clearly established that even if an irregular building was included in a subdivision surrounded by numerous buildings, the protected legal property is damaged and constitutes a crime and furthermore, the TS has established that demolition should be the general rule in this type “, he added, the head of the Environment.
Killing a deer “with knives” is a crime
In this same unit, the environmental prosecutor recalled that with the change in the law on animal welfare, not only domestic animals are now protected, but also cases such as a complaint for the death of a deer “with knives“which was archived because the law did not provide for this hypothesis, this would now be considered animal abuse.
Finally, the prosecutor’s report in this area includes two important investigations concerning crimes against historical heritage. In this sense, the prosecutor specializing in these offenses initiated proceedings to plunder of a site “of exceptional value where a scientific test was introduced which determined that the extraction actually corresponded to the site” and other processes of discovery of archaeological pieces and their sale online.
During the presentation of the Report, for his part, the Attorney General Fernando Sobron indicated that the evolution of delinquency over the past year was similar to that of 2022 in terms of processing of cases, although an increase in emergency procedures leading to compliant sentences was detected. As a reminder, Sobron deplored a slight rebound in sexual assault crimes after the new law came into force, which increased from 219 cases in 2022 to 274 last year.
Another milestone highlighted in the report of the Córdoba Prosecutor’s Office last year was the increase in complaints received related to the economic management of the public sector. Without going into details, Assistant Prosecutor for Economic Crimes Carmen Romero told the media that there are “numerous complaints filed against administrations.” public for irregularities in procurement procedures that are subject to investigation by the Prosecutor’s Office.
In this context, Romero clarified that many of these complaints filed for public irregularities concern procurement issues by splitting of contracts but also by auditing expenses.
These complaints in public administrations come, for example, according to Romero, from invoices which are the subject of an objection from the auditor, even if in themselves “neither the splitting of the contract nor the objections in general do not directly imply that there is a crime.
In these cases, added Romero, “from the Prosecutor’s Office we request the report of the auditors who must guarantee this public contract and we also have the collaboration of the Andalusian Anti-Fraud Office and Corruption (created in 2021) and the Anti-Corruption Prosecutor’s Office from which we received complaints… when they detected administrative irregularities, and there is also a collaboration agreement with the General State Prosecutor’s Office.
Accidents continue to increase
Concerning road safety, the public prosecutor’s office opened a total of 50 investigation procedures in 2023, the majority for driving without a license or for passing under the license regime. influence of alcohol. In total, over the past year, 919 charges were brought by this prosecution, 85 of them aggravating circumstance of repeat offenseand eight of them, multiple recidivism.
As explained by the Deputy Prosecutor for Traffic Safety, Natalia Izquierdo, in 2023 a total of 186 reports were received from the Córdoba Local Policethree of them being due to people killed on urban roads and the rest to accidents with injuries, it is significant that 38 of these accidents corresponded to accidents.
On intercity roads there were 20 people died in Córdoba in 2023 compared to 25 people in 2022 and a total of 78 accidents with deceased injured people which gave rise to the corresponding report and the opening of procedures, compared to 94 accidents in 2022.
Regarding the Occupational Health and Safety delegation, prosecutor María Ángeles Rojas said that the main causes of work accidents continue to be falls from different heights, as well as the entrapment of limbs in high-risk machines and the crushing under heavy objects.
Exponential increase in computer crimes
For her part, the head of computer crime investigations at the Cordoba public prosecutor’s office Cristina Ruiz stressed that although the statistics do not yet include all crimes that fall under this area as computer crimes, since they also refer to crimes that violate privacy, honor or sexual freedom, those of this nature “increase exponentially every year”.
In this case, Ruiz pointed out that the main computer crimes are usually damage, sabotage, account looting, extortion, threats, possession of child pornography, fraud or identity theft on social networks.
