Criminal Court number 6 of Málaga has declared that it lacks jurisdiction to try the former mayor of Manilva, Antonia Muñoz, for a continuing offence of prevarication, and has ruled that the case must be tried by the Provincial Court.
In a court order, the judge has ordered the case to be transferred to the investigating court in Estepona, which will have to reinvestigate part of the proceedings before the case is sent to the Provincial Court of Málaga.
The lawyer representing the former mayor, Óscar Chicharro Arcas, asked in July 2021 for the trial to be suspended at Criminal Court number 6 of Málaga for lack of jurisdiction, since the sentence that could be sought for this offence would have to be tried by the Provincial Court.
Chicarro has always maintained that a continuing offence of prevarication can carry penalties of more than ten years of special disqualification, and that, as a result, jurisdiction to try the present case lay with the Provincial Court and not the Criminal Court.
Three years after this request, the court has agreed with him, although during this time there have been several attempts to schedule trial dates, and the Provincial Court upheld an appeal ordering an entirely new trial.
Another former mayor
Another former mayor of Manilva, Mario Jiménez, will also sit in the dock. He faces a prosecution request of two years in prison for a continuing offence of prevarication and another as a necessary accomplice in a continuing offence of self-interested management in the Manilva II case, which is investigating the illegal contracting of companies.
The prosecutor is also seeking special disqualification from the right to stand for election for the duration of the sentence, 24 months of fines at 15 euros per day and four years of special disqualification from public employment or office, according to the indictment.
His predecessor, former mayor Antonia Muñoz, is also accused in these proceedings, together with her husband and five other councillors, and they face two years in prison, as the prosecutor considers that they allowed the Town Hall to contract with companies belonging to Muñoz and her relatives «knowing that they were breaching legal requirements».
According to the prosecution’s classification of the facts, Antonia Muñoz, who resigned in 2014 after being expelled from IU, and her husband set up a furniture and decoration company in 2005.
Two years later she was elected mayor of Manilva and in 2009 the Town Hall began awarding contracts to the couple’s company.
Although the mayor had the authority to approve expenditure, she delegated that power to the Local Government Board, of which the other defendants were members in their capacity as councillors. «Aware of the unlawfulness of the contracting», they went on to approve the invoices despite repeated objections from the Town Hall’s comptroller, who warned of the lack of budget allocation and of failure to meet the requirements and formalities for contracting.
Source: La Opinión de Málaga
