The Prosecutor’s Office requested the files of the contract for the award of a project to the company in which the brother of the Mobility Delegate and campaign spokesman for the mayor, Borja Carabante, works
The Special Prosecutor’s Office against Corruption and Organized Crime has archived on Monday the two writings of complaint against the project awards burying of the A-5 motorway to the company Subterra Ingeniería SL, which Podemos and Marta Higueras, mayor of the mixed group in this last legislature, had put under suspicion with separate complaints for alleged crimes of prevarication, influence peddling, bribery and illicit association.
The Prosecutor’s Office opened proceedings last February and requested the files of said award contract from the company where the brother of Borja Carabante, Mobility delegate and campaign spokesperson for Mayor José Luis Martínez Almeida.
But four months then the public ministry, as the City Council itself announced this Monday, has concluded that the complaints filed “they lack clues that justify a criminal investigation beyond the verification of the contracting files, also considering that this would mean a review of the administrative legality of that public contracting & rdquor;, which is why the case has been filed.
Without “indicative minimum elements”
With respect to crime of prevarication administrative, the Prosecutor’s Office indicates that there are no “minimum indicative elements & rdquor; in the contracting file that “allow us to assess that the service award contract & rdquor; It was “an arbitrary resolution & rdquor ;.
On the assumption of influence peddling, points out that “it is not accredited & rdquor; nor “minimally indicative & rdquor ;, attending to the ajurisprudence of Supreme Court that, according to Efe summary, understands that a “suggestion & rdquor; it is not enough as an efficient influence on the action or decision of another person derived from the position of the active subject. About him bribery crime, the Public Prosecutor understands that the “mere relationship of kinship & rdquor; between the Mobility delegate and his brother does not prove per se the existence of a request or receipt of a favor or retribution, which is not proven, nor does it conclude that the plurality of people denounced has been concerted for a criminal purpose, as required by the crime of illicit association, which is also ruled out.
Background
Just like reported THE SPANISH NEWSPAPERfrom the Prensa Ibérica group, Higueras submitted his brief on last january 30, one day after eldiario.es published the denounced events. According to the document registered that day, on August 20, 2020, at the contracting table of the Environment and Mobility Area, a contract was awarded for the “drafting of the execution project for the Southwest Green Walk (underground of the A-5 – Paseo de Extremadura)” for an estimated value of €3,077,246.29, a contract that was modified due to the relaunch of Operation Camp. The winning company was the UTE Esteyco-Subterra Energía, in which one of Carabante’s brothers works. The complaint went on to say that only one day after the award was made, it was annulled, and that almost a week later, the mayor, by decree, accepted Carabante’s abstention from this award and accepted that he be replaced by Inmaculada Sanz, who shortly after accepted the same conditions of the adjudication and this was formalized.
For this reason, fig trees filed a complaint against Almeida and his two area delegates, Carabante and Sanz, against the winning company Subterra Energía, which was awarded the contract; Rafael Carabante, the brother of the Councilor for Mobility and the Environment; and María Dolores Ortiz Sánchez, General Director of Mobility of the Madrid City Council.