The prosecutors of the ‘Punic’ ask for more time to close the investigation

The prosecutors who investigate the case Punic of corruption have requested the investigating judge Manuel Garcia-Castellon to extend the period of instruction for a period of “no lower than five years”, counting from the beginning of the searches, which pulled out in mid-2014. The representatives of the public ministry, in a written statement to the that it has had access to this newspaper, set out to the magistrate a series of bureaucratic problems and legal that are delaying the instruction, therefore, call for the implementation of the legal exception that allows you to extend the time of research.

The prosecutors, Teresa Galvez, and Carmen García-Cerda, remember that “are pending a large number of statements of witnesses and investigated” that you mentioned in recent police reports, incorporated to the cause, which has 16 separate parts and whose ringleader is the exconsejero madrid Francisco Granados.

Also missing the reaching hands of the judge a series of expert reports on kickbacks in exchange for favors urban planning in Valdemoro, madrid municipality of which Granados was mayor. These reports should also include an assessment of the damage to municipal assets caused by that management supposedly corrupt. According to the prosecutors, the expert of Milanobet the Tax Agency requested by the judge to help in the investigation “has not been incorporated to the cause, until after these last summer holidays”.

Another front that has been complicated is the outside. “The international cooperation with other member states and third states is their difficulties on the own network that were investigated in order to hide their illicit proceeds,” said the prosecutors. “Must still be sent requests complementary and new rogatory, some to countries that are not cooperating according to the international reports”. It is the case of Singapore. In this asian country is the course trust companies entrepreneur David Marjaliza, which cooperates with the investigation, from June 2015. Dismantling this network would allow, say the prosecutors, “claim to Switzerland, the works foreclosed” to the constructor.

In two of the 16 pieces, among them the one referring to Arpeggio, the public company of floor of the Community of Madrid, the researchers are finding it difficult to establish the facts, due to the inherent complexity of the lattice and the use of straw buyers.

The prosecutors claim that the allegations as defenses have problems to access to the digital platform Lexnet in which are deposited all the elements of the summary and made the notifications to the parties. This platform cannot be found “in these moments fully operational”, and he is managing with the ministry of Justice a search engine to explore more quickly the documents seized in digital format and e-mails.