The march of mayors and senior officials of the PSOE for the Andalusian Courts It resumes once the summer is over. And that’s it for more than 100 pending files that the courts of Andalusia hold for cases related to BEFORE It is necessary to add the dozens of complaints admitted for treatment against Andalusian socialist mayors. The last to declare was, this Tuesday, Antonio Manuel Suárez, former socialist mayor of Valencina de la Concepción (Seville)accused of alleged crimes of omitted prevarication for his alleged “permissiveness” in the presence of an illegal warehouse which also served as a grill restaurant “without planning or business permit”, the ownership of which belonged to the brother of a councilor of the PSOE in the City Council.
Thus, the former socialist mayor has denied benefited from these facts when he appeared as an accused in this trial, which revolves around a warehouse on a plot of land Valencia classified as non-developable land of special protection, which also appeared within the almost 780 hectares of the municipal limits of this city and Castilleja de Guzmán, protected as an archaeological zone, due to the multiple prehistoric remains located in this area of the Aljarafe region.
The work, promoted by the brother of a man who was a councillor of the Consistory between 2004 and 2011, is said to have begun before the accused landed in 2007 at Valencina Town Hallyear in which the city council declared illegalizable the works and refused any building permits.
The former mayor was thus confronted with questions from the prosecutor in the case, who attributed two resolutions to him City hall July 2012, stating that the developer of the works and brother of a former councillor had “fulfilled the restoration obligations” of the land as part of a 2008 legality restoration file and “allowing the illegal warehouse to remain as a tool shed.
Grill restaurant
But according to him Public Ministrythe ship’s manager would not have “assumed the agricultural destination, since the agents of the Local police were able to verify on June 3, 2013 that the building was used as a grill restaurant”, which they corroborated during “inspections in July and August”, after which “they informed the town hall that there was a significant influx of people and vehicles” to the aforementioned nave.
In this regard, the prosecutor, who is requesting for him two years in prison for two crimes of omitted prevarication due to his “permissiveness” in the face of such events and a fine of 3,600 euros; He reproached him that already in September 2013, the local police had informed him again, as mayor, that “new construction works” were being carried out in the warehouse; Although he stated that “at no time” had he known that “new works” had been detected on the land and that he had ordered the suspension of the hotel activity and its sealing; Suárez specifying that the police reports are sent “to the City Hall” as an institutional service of the City Hall. As he insisted, he never had any “reports” on the aforementioned new works on the farm and on the continuity of the reception activity without a permit.
After the prosecutor in charge of the case presented in plenary session the opposition’s questions on the situation of the said company, in particular due to the “new works” and the continuity of the hotel activity, the former mayor assured that the councilors had access to the files and the orders. City hallSo in response to the “alerts” indicated by the representative of the public prosecutor’s office, he always assured that he was not aware of such extremes and that thanks to the first police report of June 2013 he would have ordered the suspension and sealing of the activity.
The representative of Public Ministry recalled the actions of the environmental prosecutor’s office, which requested information from the mayor, who would have always, since December 2013, informed the prosecutor “that the only works of which he was aware were those which had given rise to the 2008 file”, ended with the alleged replacement of the land”, with which the first mayor at the time “silenced everything concerning the new complaint received, which led to the opening of the preliminary procedure”, according to the prosecutor’s office.
Architect
In this regard, the former mayor defended that it was the “municipal architect” who “responded to the prosecution”. “I did not intervene in any way in the architect’s report”, he affirmed, while the prosecutor accused him of being “co-responsible” for the case after having supposedly taken note of the report, which represented “a contradiction” compared to the report of the local police. opinions on the “new works” and the continuity of the reception activity.
According to the public accusation, the mayor of the time did not materialize “no seal”knowing that the issue was even addressed several times in plenary and that Suárez was “perfectly aware of the activity carried out since 2008” in the aforementioned illegal warehouse.
But the former first mayor, questioned by his lawyer, affirmed that after receiving the “first report” on the subject in June 2013, he had acted “immediately” by ordering “cessation of activity”extreme than according to the Prosecutor’s Office did not materialize; although he used the 2008 file to reestablish legality in the property, supplemented as he pointed out by a report on the subject from the municipal architect himself.
In early March 2023, let us recall, Antonio Manuel Suárez announced that he would not run again as a candidate for mayor in the municipal elections of May of the same year, citing reasons of health and assuring that his decision had “nothing to do” with the previous decision to open trial against him for these alleged events.
