Right-hand man of Jesús Gil in Marbella until the former president of Atlético de Madrid was convicted for the “T-shirt Affair”, Julián Muñoz died at the age of 76, leaving behind a series of convictions mainly for crimes against land use planning, administrative procrastination and embezzlement. Mayor of the Costa del Sol municipality of the Independent Liberal Group (GIL) between May 2002 and April 2003, he was previously councilor for the Great Festivals, first deputy mayor and, almost from the start of his public life, the subject of the press of the heart during and after his love affair with the tonadillera Isabel Pantoja.
Mayte Zaldívar’s ex-partner, who was also sentenced to prison in 2018 for money laundering, recently received the news of his latest conviction in more than a hundred legal proceedings in which he has been immersed for his participation in the urban planning of Marbella. This judgment, in the form of a judicial epilogue to his controversial political career, came at a time when his city was preparing to become a pioneering municipality in terms of land use planning, clinging to the path opened by the Junta de Andalucía to build on rustic land.
He was first imprisoned in the summer of 2006 for his involvement in the “Malaysia affair”, for which he was sentenced in 2013 to two years in prison. Before entering and leaving prison and the courts, Muñoz was forced to leave the command of Marbella in favor of Marisol Yagüe, who became mayor in April 2003 after a motion of censure against Muñoz supported by councilors from the PSOE, PA and GIL.
