The third section of the The Provincial Court of Madrid revoked the free dismissal of the investigation against the Spanish-Lebanese arms dealer Abdul Rahman El Assir El Kassar, which had been issued by the instructor of the case, Fermín Echarri, then head of the Investigating Court number 52 of Madrid. This magistrate had agreed to give folder to the investigations that it kept open against the friend of the emeritus king, Juan Carlos I, in a decision dated May 27, 2013, considering that the facts investigated did not constitute a crime some, as reported by El Periódico de España.
When a judge decrees a free dismissal, it is considered a tried case. And the confirmation of that decision prevents a new process from being reopened on the same facts. For this reason, the decision of the Court of which Fermín Echarri was the head, which stopped the Provincial Court of Madrid, amounted to an early acquittalwhich ended the procedure.
“What was argued in the order of May 27 in order that Mr. El Assir was not given the opportunity to explain himself before the Tax Inspection makes no sense,” defends the order, which shows that if the Tax Agency had claimed some documentation during the judicial investigation”would have invaded aspects of the jurisdictional activityThis was expressed by the speaker, Juan Pelayo García Llamas, who formed the court together with the magistrates María Pilar Abad Arroyo and Rosa E. Rebollo Hidalgo.
State Attorney and Prosecutor’s Office
In this way, the Chamber paid attention to the State Attorney and the Madrid Prosecutor’s Office, who had appealed the decision of Judge Echarri, who a few months later, on July 29, 2014, joined the National High Court in commission of service.
The order of the Provincial Court of Madrid, issued on July 25, 2013, does agree with Echarri in another aspect: that the tax crimes of the years 2000 and 2001 had prescribed, but on the contrary, it refuses to exonerate El Assir for the crimes against the Public Treasury of 2002 and 2003, for which he ended up in the dock: “If the instructor considered the testimony of witnesses necessary that provide a reason for the destination of the funds or assets, it was in their hands to remember it and practice it because today, perhaps not in the near future, the investigation continues to correspond to the investigating judges,” completes the resolution, which censures Echarri’s decision.
In addition, the car considers “key” the documentation provided to the case by the Tax Agency on the companies that El Assir would have used to mask his three properties in Spain. The Martínez Campos property was owned by La Granjilla Corporation, the Puerta de Hierro property by the firm Miraflores Dieciocho; and that of Sotogrande (Cádiz) of Gransoto SL. “Faced with what is stated in the impugned order there is no record of the activity of the mercantile“, continues the magistrate, who rejects that the payment of an annual fee that is imposed in Panama on companies and the payment of the IBI of a property in Madrid can be considered a business action: “Little or nothing has to do with an activity corporate”, settles Juan Pelayo García Llamas.
“At last he deigned to do it”
The order also reflects his discomfort with the procedural performance of El Assir, about whom he even says: “Illustrative is Abdul Rahman El Assir El Kassar’s statement, when he finally deigned to do soafter having put all kinds of obstacles to its practice and managing to prevent both contradiction and judicial immediacy”.
Precisely in his testimony, the arms dealer, a friend of Juan Carlos I, assured that he did not have the social books of his companies, documents and accounts of the mercantile companies, documentation that according to the magistrate “is being reconstructed: “This is the way things are, and in relation to the fiscal years 2002 and 2003 of the IRPF and the person of Abdul Rahman El Assir appears that did not file a tax return“, emphasizes the car.
“Once the investigation is concluded”, continues the resolution, “there are indicative elements [. ..] concerning the commission by Abdul Rahman El Assir El Kassar of two crimes against Public estate”.
exceed their duties
However, magistrate Juan Pelayo García Llamas ends the part of the order called “foundations of fact” warning the head of the Investigating Court number 52 that the existence of rational indications of criminality regarding the participation of a person in allegedly criminal acts is sufficient. to substantiate the accusation against it: “And the instructor cannot go beyond the functions of the investigation and delve into issues that affect guilt, such as fraud.or to other elements of the type, except in cases of manifest diaphanousness, entering into trials of inference whose decision requires the celebration of true acts of evidence under the rule of the principles that govern the oral trial.
“Otherwise”, concludes the order of July 25, 2013, “the right to effective judicial protection is being violated with defenselessness of the accusation that it is also deprived of its right to support it and to use the pertinent means of proof”.
As anticipated The Newspaper of Spain, it was not until the beginning of the following year, in 2014, when the commissioner José Manuel Villarejo tried to carry out different maneuvers before the justice so that El Assir would get rid of Justice. According to his diaries, which were seized in a search ordered by the anti-corruption prosecutor’s office while the retired commissioner remained in preventive detention, he went to the then dean of the Madrid courts, José Luis González Armengol, who promised to speak with the head judge of the Court of Instruction number 52 of Madrid: “Fermín Echarri. Judge of the 52 that takes the subject El Assir. Lawyer says that if it deflates everything ends in France,” he wrote.
“Correct and responsive”
On July 8, 2014 he writes again: “Fermín Court 52. Very correct and responsive. He wants to return to the AN [Audiencia Nacional]. He is closely related to Armengol “, alluding to the former dean of the Madrid courts José Luis González Armengol. Fermín Echarri joined the National Court on July 29 on commission.
A day later, on July 9, the opinion of El Assir’s lawyer, Ildefonso González-Grano de Oro Guirado, is also on the agenda. “Very happy with the impression of the appointment in 1952. He agreed to transmit the steps to El Assir. appeal pending for…” On September 3 there are new allusions by Villarejo to the case: “De la Joya. Pending sending Note on brother-in-law”. However, the king’s friend’s lawyer refused to have met together with Villarejo with magistrate Echarri, who is now one of the three magistrates that make up the court that judges the retired commissioner.
Currently this Spanish-Lebanese arms dealer is in search and capture when absent from the trial for which the Madrid prosecutor’s office requests a sentence of eight years in prison and the payment of a fine of 73,923,014 euros, and that it also compensate the Public Treasury for civil liability with the payment of 14,784,602 euros.
Agreement in 2018
According to the account of the events made by the newspaper El País, Abdul Rahman El Assir El Kassar accepted a deal in 2018 by which he was offered the possibility of returning to Spain in exchange for paying part of his debt. The Madrid newspaper assures that the friend of Juan Carlos I came to enter Spain without being arrested. Leading the negotiations would be his son-in-law, Hugo Linares, whose name appears on several occasions in Villarejo’s agendas.
Precisely, the retired commissioner had written on March 11, 2014, in relation to his partner Adrián de la Joya, brother-in-law of the Hispanic-Lebanese, “Hotel Bohimas [fonético de Beau Rivage]. Geneva. Presidential suit where Joy’s brother-in-law is [Adrián de la Joya]. Hugo Linares, boyfriend daughter of Abdul Rahman El Assir”.
The investigation that discovered the tax crimes began in the Central Court of Instruction number 5 of the National High Court in the BBV Privanza case, in which the several fraudsters hiding their money on the British island of Jerseya tax haven.
BBV Privanza loans
Precisely one of the arguments put forward by the State Attorney that convinced the Madrid Provincial Court to send El Assir to the bench was the analogy of his actions with that of another of those involved in the BBV Privanza case. Basque businessman Juan Ramón Reparaz was sentenced to 38 years in prison for defrauding more than 25 million to the Gipuzkoan Treasury.
“The similarity also extends to the facts subject to prosecution. It is striking that the loans that the companies controlled by Luis de Miguel granted to the companies of Juan Ramón Reparaz were loans outside normal market conditionsjust as it happened with the loans that, what a coincidence, the BBV Privanza Bank Jersey (among others) granted to the companies integrated in the El Assir group”, concluded the State lawyer, whose appeal managed to prevent the dismissal of the accusation against the arms dealer.