Albiol (PP) finds it "surprising" that the Prosecutor's Office asks him to be imprisoned for alleged prevarication in Badalona (Barcelona)

He claims 2 years and 10 months for the installation of telephone antennas in the barracks of the Local Police

BARCELONA, 9 Mar. (EUROPA PRESS) -

The former mayor of Badalona (Barcelona) and leader of the municipal group of the PP in the City Council, Xavier García Albiol, has described as "surprising" that the Prosecutor's Office requests for him a sentence of two years and 10 months in prison for alleged prevarication in the installation of telephone antennas in the local police barracks in 2012, when he was mayor.

"This accusation is surprising because at no time during the legal proceedings has absolutely no one claimed that the problem regarding the installation of these telephone antennas had been transferred to me," he stated in a statement sent to Europa Press after 'El Periódico' has advanced the request of the Prosecutor's Office, which also wants to impose a fine of 9,500 euros.

Albiol has defended that "the permit for the installation of telephone antennas is a merely technical and administrative procedure" and has criticized the fact that the accusation is made public two and a half months after the municipal elections.

In October 2021, the Investigating Court 4 of Badalona completed the investigation of this case regarding the installation of mobile phone antennas in the summer of 2012.

In the order issued at the time, the judge explained that faced with a problem of lack of coverage in several areas of the city, the Vodafone telephone company asked the council to install a mobile telephone base, with a 20-meter-high antenna.

As verified by the judge at the end of the investigation, the request was made "informally, through an email" from the director of information technology of the City Council, who sent the request to the then delegate of the municipal company Engestur, also investigated in this cause.

The magistrate then recalled that this facility needed an urban planning license and stated that the base was installed on a property that, according to the classification it had in the General Metropolitan Plan of Barcelona, ​​could not be used for this purpose.

It was a municipal property, located in the offices of the Badalona Local Police, for which "the processing of the mandatory patrimonial file was required", but according to the judge none of the procedures were carried out.

"In an absolutely parallel and analogous way", in September 2012 Telefónica installed a mobile phone station, according to the judge with the verbal authorization of those responsible for the consistory and presumably also without the necessary license.

The two bases were installed provisionally and worked until 2018, when the telephone companies themselves withdrew them at the request of the consistory.

The investigating judge verified that the City Council did not receive any payment for these facilities and that the telephone companies did not pay any fee for using public space, and points out that the installation "was openly contrary to the urban and environmental legality in force at that time."

According to a report from the Antifrau Office that the judge mentioned in the order that closed the investigation, the consistory stopped receiving 17,448 euros for these facilities, and remarked that the two infrastructures were directly connected to the electricity supply of the Urban Guard barracks although it has not clarified how and who did it.

Agents and unions of the Local Police complained about the facilities to the person under investigation and then councilor for citizen security and participation, who "was perfectly aware of the illegality of the facilities, hid this circumstance from those responsible" of the police union and assured them that they were legal.

The Urbana unions also filed complaints with Albiol, in writing and with a face-to-face meeting, but it did not take "any action, even informal, in relation to the requests for information and removal of the aforementioned telephone masts", despite having powers to grant licenses and open urban discipline files.

The judge believes that Albiol did not exercise these powers, and that neither did the then manager of the territory, "despite the fact that he either informally authorized the installation, or learned about it later without exercising formal or informal actions to put an end to its existence."