The ex-counselor Martín Soler and two ex-directors of IDEA are prosecuted for the loans of 36 million to Santana

Judge Vilaplana warns that the initial agreement was "altered" to convert the credits into "non-refundable aid"

SEVILLA, 25 Nov. (EUROPA PRESS) -

The reinforcing judge of the Investigating Court number six of Seville, José Ignacio Vilaplana, has issued an order in which he agrees to continue as an abbreviated procedure the previous proceedings followed against the Socialist Minister of Innovation, Science and Business Martín Soler, the former general directors of the IDEA Agency Jacinto Cañete and Antonio Valverde, the former president of the extinct automobile company of Linares (Jaén) Santana Motor Bienvenido Martínez and the legal representatives of said company Carlos G.M.D.M. and José Enrique B.R.; for the loans for a value of 36.1 million euros granted by IDEA to Santana.

This is how it appears in this order issued last Tuesday, advanced by ABC and disseminated by the Communication Office of the Superior Court of Justice of Andalusia (TSJA), in which the aforementioned magistrate appreciates alleged crimes of administrative prevarication, embezzlement of public funds and falsehood documentary film.

The instructor explains in the order that this case is aimed at "the alleged illegality of the formalization and publication -in a mendacious way-" of the so-called Massif agreement between the Ministry of Innovation, Science and Business of the Andalusian Government and the IDEA agency " and the possible irregular administration of the funds destined for its financing, execution and compliance"; specifying that, within the framework of this agreement, the IDEA agency approved the granting of a "reimbursable loan" to Santana Motor for the amount of 25,735,044 euros and 10,370,000 euros (in total, 36,105,044 euros), respectively.

In this sense, and as highlighted by the magistrate in the order, the General Intervention of the Board explained in the action report of the IDEA agency that the agreement finally signed on December 17, 2010, and signed by the former counselor and one of the former general directors of IDEA investigated, "contains a new substituted and incorporated text, different from the one actually approved by the Governing Council on December 15, 2009", in such a way that the content of the agreement and its legal nature were "substantially" altered. and "what the IDEA agency (and later Santana Motor) receives is not a reimbursable loan, as the Governing Council had authorized, but non-refundable aid."

As stated by the judge, the action report issued by the Intervention of the Board concluded that the administrative action "would have been carried out with patent omission of the legally applicable procedures and principles", a "breach" that means that the loan that as such had been authorized by the Governing Council "would have become a delivery of funds without any consideration in favor of Santana Motor", thus producing "an impairment of these public funds, which would have been delivered to Santana without authorization from the Governing Council and without them having been recovered by the IDEA agency given the situation of insolvency and financial crisis in which said entity had been for years".

The magistrate then analyzes the loan granted by IDEA to Santana Motor under the "mendacious" text of the agreement of December 17, 2009, and concludes that, taking into account the results of the procedures carried out, "it would be feasible to deduce that those responsible for the IDEA Agency and the Ministry of Innovation, Science and Business investigated would have irregularly transferred the funds object of the loan derived from the Massif agreement in favor of Santana Motor, with the natural complicity and concurrence of its directors and representatives investigated, knowing of the lack viability of the project and the lack of economic capacity of said company to reimburse it, unfairly and arbitrarily, without any intention of improving the product and with the sole purpose of covering expenses already accrued that could not be attended or financed from another mode".

Thus, it insists that "the amounts delivered by IDEA to Santana Motor as a loan, later modified to a participatory loan, would actually be non-refundable aid granted graciously - with no intention of recovering them - outside of the legally applicable procedures, thus proceeding to allocate and dispose of those funds arbitrarily, without any justification in the public interest, due to the mere voluntarism of those responsible for the Ministry of Innovation and the IDEA agency, who would have had the natural collaboration of those responsible for Santana ".

The magistrate indicates that "it is not possible to verify that the funds transferred or contributed to Santana Motor were used in the Massif project" and asserts that "there are indications that the capital (36,105,044 euros) object of the loans granted were applied for purposes different from those foreseen in the agreement", since the subcontracted companies "that were going to be recipients of the funds and that were going to participate in a relevant way in the execution of the project -being thus expressly designated according to the terms of the agreement itself- only received funds -some, but not all- amounting to 10,649,604 euros, if the 2010-2011 period is considered exclusively, an amount far removed from the 36,105,044 euros object of the irregular financing described".

Finally, the judge asserted that "the illegality of the irregular and unjustified administration and disposition of public funds in favor of the Santana Motor group could not be understood as devoid of criminal relevance -much less understood as corrected- due to the mere fact that said business group was participated by the Board itself through the IDEA agency", and this "taking into account that the entity obliged to repay the funds object of the loan derived from the Massif agreement was Santana Motor, a private mercantile company -which also operates in a free, non-intervened market, even though its capital was essentially public, the latter circumstance that does not allow the commercial company (endowed with its own legal personality) to be confused with its majority shareholder".