The former mayor of Ibiza, the socialist Rafa Ruiz, and the current president of the Ibiza Yacht Club, Juan Marí, will sit in the dock in the macro case of ports to be tried by the Provincial Court of the Balearic Islands next year.
Ruiz and Marí are facing a request for a three-year prison sentence for a continuous crime of administrative malfeasance. As expected after neither the private prosecution, Doce Millas, nor the Anti-Corruption Prosecutor’s Office requested it in their indictments, the vice president of the club, the lawyer and former Minister of Interior of the Balearic Government, the socialist Josep Maria Costa, has been spared from the dock.
Million-dollar indemnity
Portocolom Nautic SL, the company that is considered the winner of the tender if there had been no rigging, claims a millionaire compensation for not having been the winner of the exploitation of the dock currently occupied by Puertos y Litorales Sostenibles, SL. In total, the claim amounts to more than 36.7 million euros, amount that is the sum of the expenses incurred in the processing and the loss of profits, that is to say, of the benefits that it aspired to obtain during the duration of the concession. The judge who has investigated the case and who has ended up issuing an order to open an oral trial, Martina Mora, according to Diario de Mallorca, does not seem to agree that the rival Club Nautico de Ibiza is entitled to the loss of profits as civil liability. In fact, she has justified not having imposed any bail for this reason.
No bond
The damage “cannot be their expectation of profit (loss of profit), but the expenses incurred by going to such procurement procedure or public award”. According to the order known yesterday and revealed by the Mallorcan press, “the proof of such damage is extraordinarily simple, being in the hand of the injured parties to provide the documents relating to the costs they assumed and add them up without requiring any expert report. None of this has been provided, nor does it appear in the case, which makes it impossible to quantify even an approximate quantification of the damage that would allow setting, at least at this procedural moment, a bond in their favor”.
Rafa Ruiz and Juan Marí will be accompanied by 12 more people in the dock of the accused in the macro-cause. At the head, the former president of the Port Authority appointed by Francina Armengol, Juan Gual de Torrella. He faces a request for nine years in prison for crimes of fraud to the administration, bribery, influence peddling and prevarication. Juan Carlos Plaza, director of the APB when the facts were committed, Armando Parada, head of operations, Fernando Berenguer, head of management, Dolores Ripoll, the state lawyer, and Fernando Puigserver, vice president of the APB, are facing requests for four years in prison. Five other people will sit in the dock for the alleged rigging of a marina in the port of Mahon: Justo Saura, as president of the nautical employers, and Benito Reynes, Javier Mas, Marc Pons Perez and Basilio Sastre, representing the company allegedly benefited. As published by La Voz de Ibiza, both the statement of instruction of the judge Martina Mora and the prosecution of the prosecution relate the maneuvers of the APB leadership and with the support of the state attorney and in collusion with the former mayor of Ibiza and then member of the Board of Directors of the APB and the knowledge of the Club Nautico de Ibiza for the entity to maintain the operation of the dock to the detriment of other bidders.
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