MARBELLA CLUB

A farmer has died in Guadassuar, Tous, in Valencia after being attacked by a jabalí wild boar. Reports say the 60 year old man was working in his own orange grove when he was surprised by the beast. Miguel E. suffered injuries in the groin and was found with his blood over his hands and face according to witnesses who said it looked like he tried to defend himself from the attack. It happened last Saturday morning. Tous is a municipality where 90% of the population are hunters and nobody can ever remember anything similar ever happening before. The local police say the victim’s son reported that his father had phoned him on his mobile to say he had been injured, but when a neighbour arrived at the scene he was already dead. Reports indicate that he had earlier suffered a heart attack.

National police arrested a member of the Marbella Local Police force who was found shoplifting in a local commercial centre on Saturday. The man had tried to take a camera from the store. Municipal sources say the agent has already handed in his plaque and pistol, and is being suspended from his post without pay. Marbella Town Hall said they lamented the incident which they described as ‘totally isolated’.

Juan Antonio Roca - EFE archive

The Malaya case investigating the widespread corruption in Marbella Town Hall, and with Juan Antonio Roca, the ex Municipal Real Estate Assessor, at the centre of the allegations, has moved on to the most interesting phase, as the Málaga court starts to investigate the bribes.

On Monday, some five years and seven months after his arrest, Roca has had to start to respond to the big questions at the centre of the case, the backhanders he allegedly received from real estate promoters in exchange for licences to build outside the PGOU urban plan. More than 50 people including ex Mayors and Roca himself are expected to declare in this section of the case.

The court considers that Roca was paid by 19 different companies between 2001 and 2006, a total of 33.3 million €. Among the big payers were Carlos Sánchez and Andres Liétor – 6.8 million, José Avila Rojas – five million, and the directors of Aifos – 4.8 million.

The Córdoba promoter Sandokán, who is now a councillor in the city, allegedly handed over 600,000 in exchange for town planning favours.

The prosecutor claims that despite not being elected, a politician or even a civil servant, Roca was the man who was running Marbella Town Hall following the motion of no confidence passed in August 2003 against the then Mayor, Julian Muñoz. Roca’s power, lubricated by bags of cash, saw all the councilors act as his subordinates.

Key to the prosecution’s case are a series of files found at the lawyers offices, Maras Asesores. The business was controlled by Roca and councilors and businessmen often met in their offices. Police found some files, in the power of Salvador Gardoqui, which are considered to be Roca’s secret accounts, showing the entry and exit of money, with the real estate section of the accounts showing a surplus of more than 17 million €.

In the court on Monday another one of the accused, Eusabio Sierra, admitted, following a plea bargain with the Anti-corruption Prosecutor, that he paid a 60,000 € backhander to Roca to speed up the Town Hall’s payment of a debt. His two year prison threat has now been reduced to six months as a result, which means he will escape jail by paying a fine.

The basis of Roca’s statement to the court today was that he was not in control of the Town Hall and that the now late Mayor, Jesús Gil decided absolutely everything, ‘above all in the areas of work, the economy and real estate’. Asked by the Prosecutor what his relationship was with the Marbella Town Hall, he replied that it was always via municipal companies.

However Roca did admit paying local councilors for their votes in the motion of no confidence against Julián Muñoz, and admitted to the judge that he was paid more than 3.5 million € in backhanders, which he described as ‘advice payments’ for projects developed in the town. He admitted that Construcciones Salamanca 740,000 € and said that Aifos, whose bosses are also on the accused bench, paid as much as 1.8 million €. He said that the accounting of Maras Asesores, was correct, and admitted that was the company he used to try and hide all his finances.

Three Gibraltar police have been injured after their boat was in collision with a Guardia Civil vessel in the waters off the Rock on Monday night. Spanish media say the collision took place in Spanish waters close to La Línea during a joint chase of drug traffickers who were in an inflatable craft. The fact the Gibraltar and the Spanish authorities were both chasing the drug traffickers showed that in this case there is no talk of any interference having taken place between the two. Spain has repeatedly requested clear protocols to be established to avoid accidents in situations such as this. The three men were injured as a result of the impact between the two boats, and were seriously hurt. All three had fallen into the water and were rescued by the Guardia. One man with a suspected head fracture was taken to La Linea Hospital but is now at St Bernards on the rock. The other two were taken to the Punta de Europa hospital in Algeciras where they were x-rayed and cleared of fractures. An investigation is underway and it is unclear at this stage whether the drug traffickers got away. The Royal Gibraltar Police vessel is reported to be extensively damaged, including its engines. It’s the latest of a chain of incidents between the Gibraltar Police and the Spanish Guardia Civil.

THE man charged with killing and dismembering a Ukrainian call-girl in Mijas in April last year has been found guilty. The public prosecution was asking for 14 years for manslaughter and five months for desecration of the body. Alla Mefodova, 36, disappeared in Fuengirola, and police only recovered the remains of her hands. DNA tests confirmed they belonged to her. The man confessed that he had been out drinking on the night of April 5, 2010, and enlisted the services of a call-girl who identified herself as Bianca. It was the six calls he made to her phone which led police to him. He told the police they were together at his house for several hours during which they drunk a bottle of whisky and took cocaine. He claimed they began to argue, probably about money. He says that he fell asleep and doesn’t remember how the woman died, but admitted that when he saw she was dead, he went into shock, considering calling the police or committing suicide, but that instead, he took her personal belongings and clothes and burned them. Later, he bought a saw, cut her body into pieces and put them into bags which he dumped in rubbish containers in the area. He claimed to have fainted several times in the process. The waiter from Castilla-La Mancha had no criminal record and had never been accused of violent behaviour. Just a month earlier, Alla had managed to bring her 17-year-old son to Spain, after leaving him with her mother in the Ukraine when he was just seven years old. He and a close friend reported her missing.