The public and media life of the elderly most ephemeral mayor from the history of Marbella (Malaga) It started in 2002. The mandate lasted only one year and three monthsbut his dating of the singer Isabel Pantoja, his televised separation from his wife, Mayte Zaldívar, and his public and media feud with his predecessor and mentor, the late businessman and politician Jesus Gil and Gilmade him one of the most popular characters in decade of the 2000soccupying hours and pages of the gossip press. But it has also occupied them in political information: the four names that appear in these few lines have been convicted for what is considered the biggest case of real estate corruption in Spain to date: the ‘Malaysia case‘.
More than 20 years after all this, his stay in prison and in a social integration center (where he finished his third year studies due to illness), Julián Muñoz died at the age of 76 following cancer, such as as he himself admitted, “at a gallop”.
Gil’s right-hand man and mayor of Marbella
Julián Felipe Muñoz Palomo was born in El Arenal (Ávila) in 1947 and, at the age of 27, he married Maite Zaldívar, with whom he had two daughters. Professional serverhe settled in Marbella and there he began to flirt with politics, entering it fully with the help of Jesús Gil, then all-powerful. Over time, he would become one of his trusted people for everything, as was the case businessman Juan Antonio Rocamastermind of the plot of “Malaya”.
From 1991, Muñoz was an advisor of the Marbella City Hall with the Independent Liberal Group (GIL), the party founded by Gil, until May 2002, he took office as mayor of the Andalusian city, succeeding Gil, who had to resign because of the “T-shirt affair”.
A few months later, a relationship will begin between the two crusade of reproaches and recriminations that the political pages – and especially the pages of the heart – would collect in detail: “It is the the biggest traitor of all those who betrayed me,” Gil tells him, as seen in the video of this news which brings together the key and media moments of the figure of Julián Muñoz, now deceased. “If he wants war, I will go to war, but first I will bring him down,” he replied.
In 2003, Muñoz obtains absolute majority in the municipal elections, thus confirming his position as mayor of Marbella, but three months later he was expelled from the city council after a orchestrated motion of censure by a group of defectors from their own party, three councilors from the PSOE and three others from the Andalusian Party. Marisol Yagueof the GIL, was elected the new mayor of Marbella.
His political decline and his time with Isabel Pantoja
Still in 2003 and well before leaving the Marbella town hall, Muñoz began a romantic relationship with the Isabel Pantoja tonadillera breaking up his 30-year marriage. Dating “la Pantoja” was not just being with a famous artist; At that time, the singer was probably the person persecuted by the gossip press. The relationship of Muñoz and Pantoja became omnipresent on entertainment setsoccupying this particular sentimental triangle for hours and hours of social gatherings and televised debates of the heart. Nicknamed “Cachuli”, Julián Muñoz has earned a more than important place in the tabloid press because he is nothing more and nothing less than the boyfriend of “la Pantoja”.
A new face would also occupy a place in these groups: the same Mayte Zaldivarwhich recounted in detail all the ins and outs of these supposed and notorious “horns”. The main complex of this house was today the emblematic workshop of “Where are you, heart”, by Antena 3one of the great exceptional witnesses of everything that happened then.
But the triangle did not remain only in matters of the heart, but the three names were found guilty of different crimes committed within the framework of the operation of the “Malaysian case”.
Sentenced to prison in Malaysia case
Isabelle Pantoja was sentenced to two years in prison for money laundering of his associate Julián Muñoz and to pay a fine of more than one million euros. Zaldívar was sentenced to two and a half years And Julien Muñoz He took the biggest and worst of the three: he was sentenced to a maximum term of 20 years in prison for various crimes committed during his stay at the Marbella Town Hall.
His relationship with Pantoja completed in 2009while Muñoz was already in prison, then in pretrial detention. From then on and forever, the unforgettable moments of this special couple will remain in everyone’s memory, as the “teeth, teeth, what bothers them’, or the mythical image of the carriage of this Rocío from 2003 in which both They appeared for the first time, together and entwinedpresenting their court in front of television cameras.
Julián Muñoz has spent an intermittent period in prison. Firstly because of the various convictions and trials he has had to face, and then because of his delicate state of health. In 2016, he left the Alhaurín de la Torre Prison (Malaga), where he had stayed for two stays, to continue his penance in third degree regime at the Social Integration Center (CIS) of Algeciras (Cadiz). Since 2021, and for health reasons, he has completed this third degree in his house in Marbella.
The relationship with Zaldívar was rebuilt over the years, with the birth of his grandchildren and with the deterioration of his health. So much so that Zaldívar was with him, with his daughters, to tuck him in and support him in his last days of life. Shortly before his death, his family admitted that The former mayor’s situation was “serious and irreversible”.
Julián Muñoz said he regretted the damage caused to Zaldívar and his two daughters, but if Isabel Pantoja had not crossed his path, these lines would probably not have been written and Muñoz would have made historymedia-wise, as Gil’s successor as mayor of Marbella (and all that implies) and not as one of the most popular characters in the gossip press in Spain.
