In the trial of Black Pearl case of urban corruption, it has been the turn of the former president of Castilla y León Juan Vicente Herrera (PP), who testifies this Thursday as a witness after seven sessions to analyze cost overruns of 20 million euros in the purchase of the building that gives its name to the ‘Pearl case’. Black’. The Provincial Court of Valladolid, after the appearance of witnesses, experts, police officers, former senior officials or former owners of the allegedly fraudulently managed land, receives this week two renowned political figures of the time. This Tuesday the former counselor of Hacienda Pilar del Olmo attended, who claimed to have found out “very late” about the purchase of the complex. Like many of her predecessors before the court, Del Olmo pointed to the former counselor and former vice president of the Junta de Castilla y León, the late Tomás Villanueva. And this name touches the person who was his boss and president between 2001 and 2019, Herrera, who this Thursday is called to clarify why, despite being warned of the extra costs, as has been pointed out in previous testimonies, he did not react to prevent the operation.
The main trial of urban corruption involving politicians in the history of Castilla y León reaches the Court after 11 years of investigation and 15 since the property and its plot, located in the town of Arroyo de la Encomienda (Valladolid), were purchased in 2009. A public company of the Board, dependent on the Economy wing, paid 60.5 million euros for a set valued at 50 million and also paid another 10 million that would have corresponded to the company. A similar nonsense happened with some land in the nearby town of Arrabal de Portillo, where some three million were paid for the ultimately phantom project of building an industrial park. However, as has been specified these days in the Provincial Court, there were more solid options for a plan of these characteristics.
The 12 investigated have not yet testified before the judge, five of them former senior officials of the Ministry of Economy between 2005 and 2012 and seven businessmen with commercial and personal relationships with the PP, the hegemonic party in Castilla y León since 1987, and linked to the irregularities in the work of the PP in Madrid, condemned by the National Court. The main political figures accused are the former Deputy Ministers of Economy Rafael Delgado and Begoña Hernández, from whom the Prosecutor’s Office demands 11 years in prison and million-dollar fines, for a total of 70 years in prison for the total of 12 defendants. The PSOE, appearing as a private prosecution, raises the figure to 221. The defenses of Delgado and Gómez have shown their defense strategy by directing their questions to the successive witnesses, trying to disassociate their clients from the decision-making that pushed them to those credited extra costs. Likewise, as in the investigation phase, weight is given to the role of Tomás Villanueva, former counselor and code name in Castilla y León until his death in 2017, the day after 83 bank accounts abroad were investigated.
The complainant in the case, Jesús Carlón, stressed in the first week of the trial on the “barbarities” and “nonsense” seen in the process. After him, 90 people will appear, among whom Pablo Trillo, director in 2009 of the involved public company Gesturcal, stood out. The current PP attorney in the Cortes admitted in the previous proceedings to have warned Juan Vicente Herrera, with whom he had great confidence, about the rumors and comments related to the prices of the Black Pearl. “The topic came up because department employees told me about it as a joke and told me about the Black Pearl because it was a very high price and I wasn’t very excited about it. Herrera told me that he would study the issue and that I should keep him informed,” he stated on March 5 at the Court. The judicial calendar estimates ending the appearances in May.
The former president of the Board, very close to Tomás Villanueva during his mandates, will have to explain to the judge this Thursday what he knew about the case. This Tuesday, the former regional head of the Treasury between 2003 and 2015, Pilar del Olmo, assured that she found out “very late”, and through the media and not from the positions of the Government of Castilla y León, of the acquisition now being judged. . Del Olmo also cited Villanueva regarding a meeting held with him in 2007 to look for “a building to rent the department’s central services.” Later, she maintained that she had not received information in this regard despite the obligation to be held accountable, nor had she been alerted to irregularities. Herrera “did not talk to me,” he stated in the Provincial Court, about the case.
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To the former president, who privately confessed to feeling very upset with the nickname Black Pearl for its pirate overtones – it is the name of Captain Jack Sparrow’s ship in the film saga Pirates of the Caribbean—, it’s your turn this Thursday. The current PP of Alfonso Fernández Mañueco has distanced itself from that era and insists that it does not correspond to them. The PSOE denounced in the first steps of the trial that the current Board had allocated 15 million euros of European funds to the company of one of the defendants in this judicial process.
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