The High Court of Justice of Catalonia (TSJC) is investigating the ERC deputy in the Parliament and former Interior Minister Joan Ignasi Elena and the former ICV coordinator Joan Herrera as necessary accomplices in an alleged crime of administrative prevarication for which the former mayor of Altafulla (Tarragona) and deputy in the Congress for Sumar, Félix Alonso Cantorné, is being investigated in the Supreme Court.
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The investigation initiated in plaza 4 of the court of first instance of El Vendrell (Tarragona) focuses on the awarding of legal advisory contracts by the Altafulla City Council between 2017 and 2019, when Félix Alonso was mayor of the municipality, with the company Milá Advocats SLP and Sinergia Dret i Medi Ambient SLP, of which Elena and Herrera are partners, allegedly without complying with the regulations.
The Civil and Criminal Chamber of the TSJC has agreed, in an order signed and notified this Wednesday and in accordance with the criterion expressed by the Prosecutor’s Office, to assume jurisdiction for the instruction of the case since Elena, as a deputy in the Catalan chamber, has legal immunity before this court, just as Alonso Cantorné does before the Supreme Court. Judge Carlos Ramos is the instructor of the case.
Although the order recalls that the Supreme Court is already investigating Alonso Cantorné for “the existence of sufficiently solid indications of criminal responsibility in certain public procurement processes,” it adds that in such processes “Elena and Herrera could have participated as accomplices,” both partners and administrators of the company Sinergia Energia Dret i Medi Ambient SLP / Sinergia EDM, which was contracted by the Altafulla City Council allegedly fraudulently using the figure of the “minor contract” to intentionally evade legal requirements, which could indicatively constitute, according to the magistrates, a crime of administrative prevarication.
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Specifically, according to the magistrates of the High Catalan Court and in accordance with what was stated in the reasoned report submitted by the judge of El Vendrell, in these contracts the “corresponding procedure could have been disregarded, the budget, there would have been misuse of the extension and of the very figure of the minor contract, actions would have been taken against unfavorable reports from the municipal comptroller and in the absence of necessary reports from the City Council Secretary.”
Furthermore, they add that “a Municipal Corporation would have contracted with companies led by people who supposedly maintain a close political link with the mayor’s party (Sumar En Comú Podem),” and they highlight that the investigated who contracted on behalf of Sinergia EDM could not have been unaware — allegedly — of the regulations corresponding to public procurement “due to their public and professional experience,” noting that Elena is a lawyer by specialty and had been mayor of another locality.
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