The National Court has 20 defendants acquitted in the trial held by the expansion of the Port of Gijón. He considers that there is no evidence that their action was to defraud a public entity, that they made any illegal decision or that they failed in their duties as public officials.
Among those who sat on the bench and have now been acquitted are those who at the time of the events were president of the Gijón Port Authority, Fernando Palao; the director of the Port Authority, Jose Luis Diaz Ratoand the general director of Transport and Ports, Fernando Menendez Rexach.
The Anti-Corruption Prosecutor’s Office, the State Attorney’s Office representing the State Ports and the Gijón Port Authority, the Observatori Ciudadanu dAsturies (OCAN) as popular prosecution and the private prosecution on behalf of a citizen and the San Lorenzo del Alto Aboño attributed to the 20 defendants a crime of fraud against the Administration. Some defendants also faced a crime of administrative prevarication.
The Chamber points out in its judgment the “inefficiency that have shown in this case the procedurally established filters to prevent facts with little or no incriminating power from reaching the oral trial phase, especially with respect to any of the defendants in whom their participation in the facts prosecuted has been merely episodic”.
The magistrates consider that the facts analyzed constitute a crime since they no collusion can be seen between those responsible for the Port of Gijón Authority and the representatives of the companies integrated in the UTE Dique Torres. “On the contrary, the deep discrepancy between one and the other is only repeatedly recorded in the course of the long relationship they maintained,” he explains.