Public Prosecution Disputes Ruling on Las Palmas President
The Public Prosecution Service diverges from the Las Palmas Provincial Court, which annulled proceedings conducted from 2015 onwards on the grounds that former corrupt judge Salvador Alba contaminated the case.
The Prosecutor’s Office has asked the Supreme Court to overturn the verdict that acquitted UD Las Palmas president Miguel Ángel Ramírez of allegations of defrauding Social Security and the Tax Authorities to the tune of €36.66 million and to order a retrial with different judges.
Contamination of Legal Proceedings
In April 2024, the Las Palmas Court ruled that the actions taken by judge Salvador Alba in this case, to undermine fellow judge Victoria Rosell, had tainted the proceedings to such an extent that they had to be declared null and void.
Expelled from the judiciary for committing offences including unlawful administration, forgery, and bribery, Alba is serving a six-year prison sentence for manipulating the case against Miguel Ángel Ramírez concerning the management of Seguridad Integral Canaria in an attempt to discredit Rosell, who was then a member of Podemos and was later prosecuted by the Supreme Court (and subsequently exonerated).
Both the Superior Court of Justice of the Canary Islands and the Supreme Court found it proven that on the day Alba took over the case initiated by Rosell, he secretly summoned Ramírez to his office without a lawyer present and offered him a series of procedural advantages, contingent on him stating certain circumstances designed to question Rosell’s performance as a judge during formal questioning.
Implications of Unlawful Actions
The Las Palmas Court determined that Alba’s “spurious” behaviour invalidates Ramírez’s subsequent formal testimony, resulting in a situation favourable to his interests: if it is invalid, it does not exist in formal terms; and if it does not exist, the Justice System failed to fulfil its obligation to summon him within the legally stipulated timeframes, allowing him the opportunity to present his account with legal assistance.
The Prosecutor’s Office, which had sought a 21-year prison sentence for Ramírez in that trial, is now attempting to counter this reasoning before the Supreme Court, deeming it absurd.
“It is absurd to claim in the ruling that the unlawful actions of the convicted magistrate, Salvador Alba Mesa, are related to the resolution dated 3/11/2015, concerning the summoning and questioning of the accused. On the contrary, the summonses and statements were neither illegitimate nor unlawful; it is illogical that these actions have been declared null,” argues prosecutor Felipe Briones.
In a legal appeal reported by El Español and La Provincia, which EFE accessed this Wednesday, the Public Prosecution requests the Supreme Court to overturn the acquittal, uphold the investigation, and order the Las Palmas Court to retry the case against the Gran Canarian businessman.
However, for the sake of “elementary guarantees of objective impartiality,” the Prosecutor’s Office requests that three other judges oversee the retrial of the case.
