Nacho Cano, artist creator of Ibiza Hippie Heaven, will testify this Monday along with three other members of his team as investigated in the case of the trainees of his musical ‘Malinche’ for an alleged crime against the rights of workers and the rights of foreign citizens.
The head of the 19th examining court of Madrid, the magistrate María Inmaculada Iglesias Sánchez, summoned Cano last December but postponed the statement until this Monday due to“scheduling needs“, according to the court document to which Europa Press had access. Precisely, the producer was detained for this accusation. After being released and in the middle of the storm, Nacho Cano arrived to Ibiza arrived in Ibiza and sought peace and refuge in his mansion on the island. Thus, Cano is being investigated for a alleged crime against the rights of foreign workers for allegedly hiring Mexican interns in his musical ‘Malinche’. in his musical ‘Malinche’ in an irregular situation. Precisely, this January 8 and 9 have testified as witnesses in the Madrid court the policemen responsible for the attestation that was opened after the complaint of the Mexican scholarship holder working in the musical. In the case of the responsible policeman and the secretary of the attestation, they declared that there was a labor relationship and “exploitation”, while Cano’s lawyers have described the judicial process as“grotesque“. “The statement of the two police officers, the inspector and the secretary, has been forceful, they have said that there was an employment relationship.
The legal debate is to establish whether an internship is an employment or non-employment relationship. This was clarified in the Royal Decree approved on January 1, 2024. The internship is a relationship similar to the labor relationship and therefore generates certain conditions and labor rights. They have stated that the working hours were endless, from 7:00 a.m. to 12:00 p.m., many days. There was labor exploitation and that probably the crime against foreigners is also fulfilled by the violation of the border”, explained the lawyer Alfredo Arrién, defense of the plaintiff Lesly Ochoa, in declarations to the media at the doors of the court. For their part, José Luis González-Montes and Elena Fernández, lawyers for Nacho Cano, stated that the criminal procedure is “an absurdity” and reiterated that during the statement their right of defense has been “curtailed” by pointing out their questions as “impertinent”. “We continue with the absurdity of criminal procedure that we are living (…) The police statement is riddled with irregularities. It was already submitted on paper to alter the random distribution that should be due through the Internet. Then, in its content, the police report contains all kinds of irregularities and inducements to the existence, which there are not, of indications of a crime. First, regarding the entry as a student of the scholarship holders, which ignores and invokes a non-existent regulation from 2009. It speaks at all times of salary retributions of employees and workers of the musical ‘Malinche’ with permanent maintenance of work in the musical, which is absolutely false, because they were scholarship holders in training, who are developing non-working practices adjusted to the exactly established times“, Gonzalez-Montes said.
From witnesses to investigated
The judge, who summoned to testify on January 9 the legal representative of the Arte Que Alimenta Foundation, the administrator of the hotel where the scholarship holders of the musical stayed, the director and administrator of the Jana Producciones school and a representative of the Casa de México Foundation in Spain, suspended the testimony of two of these witnesses because she understood that they had participated“actively in the falsehood regarding the simulation of a training relationship and not an employment relationship”. This was explained by Arrién, who also explained that the witnesses did not come to testify and that they will be taken again, although as investigated. Also this Thursday it was the turn for the scholarship holder in favor of Nacho Cano, Victoria Hernández, who assured that the music producer and ‘Malinche’ “has done everything legally”, at the same time that she accused the judge of “defaming”, although the defense lawyer of Lesly Ochoa assured that the witness has ratified the version of her client: “She came to Spain being a minor”. Likewise, it has been discovered that the school Jana Producciones is the company with which they “tried to simulate” the training relationship and not the labor relationship, as Arrién pointed out.
