He assures that the commissioner’s collaborators also offered him “miraculous solutions” to his legal problems
MADRID, 21 Oct. (EUROPA PRESS) –
Businessman William Anthony Schwank, claimed by Guatemala as an alleged intermediary of an illegal commission for the expansion of Puerto Quetzal, declared this Friday before the judge of the National High Court investigating the ‘Villarejo case’ that Ángel Pérez Maura paid him between 1,500 and 2,000 euros per month, through collaborators of the commissioner, in exchange for not collaborating with the Justice of his country, which was also persecuting the Spanish businessman.
Schwank has appeared for several hours before the head of the Central Court of Instruction Number 6, Manuel García Castellón, after the anti-corruption prosecutors Miguel Serrano and Jorge Andújar demanded that he be questioned within the framework of this separate piece number 4 or ‘Pit’ . He was already summoned on March 11 but then he accepted his right not to testify because he was immersed in an extradition process to Guatemala.
In this line of investigation by ‘Tándem’, the instructor tries to find out if the brothers Ángel and Álvaro Pérez Maura hired the Villarejo business group, CENYT, to prevent the former from being extradited to Guatemala for his alleged involvement in paying bribes to Guatemalan authorities for the Quetzal Container Terminal (TQC) to obtain the contract to expand said port.
Ángel Pérez Maura and Schwank are two of the six people against whom the Guatemalan Prosecutor’s Office issued international arrest warrants in 2016 for these alleged corruptions. According to the legal sources consulted by Europa Press, Schwank said this Friday that he found out that he was wanted and captured when he was in Palma de Mallorca to meet with an old friend.
According to his story, Pérez Maura asked him to go to Madrid to meet and in that meeting he strongly asked him to remain in Spain to avoid any type of collaboration with the Guatemalan Justice that could end up splashing him. In exchange, he offered her protection and financial support, he has specified.
From that moment on, Schwank has indicated that he met monthly with a man named Víctor who said he was a friend of Ángel Pérez Maura so that he would give him between 1,500 and 2,000 euros. At this point, according to the aforementioned sources, the prosecutor has shown him a photograph of former police officer Antonio Bonilla –one of CENYT’s collaborators– and the Guatemalan businessman has identified him as Víctor.
Bonilla would have been making the monthly deliveries to him until Villarejo’s arrest, in November 2017. Afterwards, two different people -Armando Mateo and a courier who worked for the Pérez Mauras- would have done them until May 2019, when he left to receive payments, coinciding with the arrest of the shipping brothers and the registration in their company.
Schwank has affirmed that at all times he linked the bearers of those funds to the legal, police and economic services team that was in charge of Pérez Maura’s own protection.
He has pointed out that at a given moment Bonilla offered to provide him directly with the same services that came to him through Pérez Maura, “miraculous solutions” to any problem of a judicial nature.
Schwank has said that was when he realized that this was not a team of lawyers. In fact, he has detailed that he never really gave him legal advice. According to him, he decided to reject the direct offer from him.
Questioned about Villarejo, he clarified that he had no contact with him. Apparently, his link with CENYT was Bonilla, to whom he says that he heard about a “boss.”
Asked by his defense why he had chosen to remain silent until now, Schwank replied that he is terrified because the Guatemalan investigation is mixed with political interests and he is afraid of possible reprisals.
In this regard, he has revealed that he has just requested asylum in Spain, something that he has justified that he did not do upon his arrival on Spanish soil on the advice of Pérez Maura, who would have assured him that he was well protected with said team. In this new situation, he has conveyed that he is willing to collaborate with Justice.
Schwank’s statement is one of the last fringes to tie up before García Castellón puts an end to the ‘Pit’ investigation, which began in 2016 when Guatemala asked Spain for the delivery of Pérez Maura, accused of paying bribes of up to 30 million dollars to senior officials of that country, including former president Otto Pérez Molina and his vice president Roxana Baldetti, to obtain the award of an infrastructure in Puerto Quetzal.
The judicial investigations indicate that the Pérez Maura would have gone to Villarejo to stop the extradition of Ángel. For this commission, baptized as ‘Pit’ -hence the name of the separate piece-, the business group of the then commissioner would have pocketed 7.4 million euros.
Initially, the Spanish investigation focused on ‘Pit’, but when the National High Court rejected Pérez Maura’s extradition to Guatemala in 2018 for being a Spanish citizen, it opened the door for him to be tried in Spain for the crimes he was accused of there. .
In response, García Castellón assumed in April 2021 the case directed in Guatemala against Pérez Maura for alleged crimes of illicit association, fraud and bribery to conclude the investigation phase and, where appropriate, proceed to trial.
Since then, he has requested various information from the Guatemalan Prosecutor’s Office. Last March, almost a year after submitting the first rogatory commission, he received the requested documentation by diplomatic bag.
However, García Castellón is still waiting for the Guatemalan Public Ministry to answer whether or not it will allow him to travel there to complete the pending investigations on the Guatemalan side of the case on the ground.
The sources consulted by Europa Press explain that the silence of the Guatemalan authorities regarding the possibility of García Castellón transferring personally is currently the main obstacle to putting an end to the investigation of ‘Pit’.
From the National High Court several reminders have already been issued to Guatemala to try to obtain a response –in any sense–, although without success. The same sources assure that an ultimatum will be sent to try to settle the matter.
