VALENCIA, 23 Jan. (EUROPE PRESS) –
Francisco Javier Cañizares, one of the defendants in the ‘zombies’ part of the Imelsa case, has asked to change lawyers on the first day of the trial, before starting with the previous questions: “My lawyer wants me to say that I have worked in Imelsa and it is a lie. I have not worked in Imelsa, I have worked in the maintenance socialist party”, he asserted.
This is how the defendant, one of the supposed ‘zombies’ of Imelsa, has pronounced himself in the trial that has started in the Valencia Court against 26 people for Imelsa’s parts B and F.
The defendant has requested the turn to speak to ask the court to suspend the trial because he wants a change of lawyer by indicating that he did not feel well defended: “I ask that a public defender defend me,” he repeated, to which his lawyer has responded that it was the first news she had in this regard.
“I’m asking you please, I have a lack of confidence in my lawyer,” said the defendant, to add: “They have given me the lawyer. I want to tell the truth (…) He wants me to say that I have worked in Imelsa and It is a lie. I have not worked in Imelsa, I have worked in the maintenance socialist party”, he exposed.
Following her request, the lawyer has expressed to the court her willingness to resign from the defense of her client as she is not in a position to assume his representation.
The court, after studying the petition, has denied it. He has rejected both suspending the trial and for the accused to change lawyers, considering that the allegations raised are “very generic and vague” and that the accused has had a lot of time beforehand to raise this issue. Thus, after a recess, the trial will begin.
Also accused in this proceeding is, among others, the former president of the Provincial Council and of the PP of the province of Valencia Alfonso Rus, who stated upon his arrival at the City of Justice that he was “very calm” and has insisted on his innocence. : “I already want to talk. He’s been waiting for seven years,” he said.
Rus, questioned by the journalists if he considers himself innocent of the facts attributed to him and for which he faces a sentence of 12 years in prison -as claimed by the public prosecutor’s office-, has answered: “Always , forever”. “I already want to at least talk, because my lawyers won’t let me. Today I had to testify but I don’t know how it goes. I have to be here for two months and you will see me every day,” he added.
Along with Rus there are other defendants such as the former sub-delegate of the Government in Valencia and former deputy Rafael Rubio (PSPV) and the former regional secretary of Education Máximo Caturla and the former deputy of the PP Salvador Enguix.
This is the second trial of the Imelsa macro-cause, since the first one was tried in May, the one related to Thematica, with the former manager of the public company Imelsa, Marcos Benavent, the self-styled ‘money junkie’, as the main accused . He is awaiting the sentence.
In the pieces that are going to be judged now, B and F, allegedly irregular hiring has been investigated in the public companies Imelsa and Ciegsa, Rus faces a sentence of 12 years in prison and Rubio –also investigated in the well-known as Azud case– to oros six, according to the provisional qualification of the public prosecutor’s office.
The Prosecutor’s Office attributes to Rus the crimes of belonging to a criminal organization, a continuous crime of embezzlement of public funds, administrative prevarication and falsification of an official document committed by a public official. Likewise, Rubio is accused of a continued crime of embezzlement of public funds, forgery in an official document and a continued crime of administrative prevarication.
For the former regional secretary of Education Máximo Caturla and the former chief of staff of Rus, Emilio Llopis, he claims the same penalty as for the former president of the Provincial Council for identical crimes, in addition to a fine and disqualification.
To Marcos Benavent, the public prosecutor applies the mitigating circumstance of repentance and requests for him nine and a half years in prison; while the then director of Human Resources and the financial director of Imelsa, María Gracia Escrihuela and José Enrique Montblanc, face another six years in prison.
