Dimás Martín, the ex-leader of the PIL political party, has confessed that he received a bribe of €72,000 from waste disposal company Urbaser in order to win the waste contract for Arrecife in 2002.
Martín’s testimony was given from prison, where he is serving a sentence for other corruption convictions, as part of the Jable Case, in which Martín, the then-Mayor of Arrecife Isabel Deniz, and other ex-public officials and directors of Urbaser are on trial for corruption that took place just over 20 years ago.
Juan Rafael Arrocha, head of Arrecife’s Technical office, also admitted that he had manipulated the bidding process for the lucrative contract.
Meanwhile, Jacinto Álvarez, who was then part of Urbaser, said that he had not given ex- Mayor Isabel Deniz €3,000, but admitted “I could have handed her some envelopes and a black pearl necklace.”
Ex-Urbaser directors claim, “there was no way to do business in Arrecife without giving bribes” and admit that “we let things get out of hand.”
The web of corruption in Lanzarote in the early years of this century led to raids by anti-corruption officers, national headlines and the eventual disappearance of Martín’s PIL party, once one of the most powerful forces on the island
The trial continues in Las Palmas de Gran Canaria.
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