A former councilor from Murcia and a general director from Valencia, to the bench for the pollution of the Mar Menor

Antonio Cerdá, in a file image.

The former Murcian Minister of Agriculture and Water Antonio Cerdá and the former Water Commissioner of the Segura Hydrographic Confederation (CHS) and current General Director of Water of the Generalitat Valenciana, Manuel Aldeguer, will sit on the bench for their alleged responsibility in the discharges of contaminated water from illegal desalination plants to the Mar Menor.

The judge instructing the so-called "Topillo case", which investigates those discharges that have largely contributed to the current state of collapse of the coastal lagoon, has ordered the opening of oral proceedings against the two political leaders, to whom he charges possible crimes prevarication, and also against 37 agricultural companies in Campo de Cartagena, which he accuses of possible crimes against the environment.

The resolution, made public this Friday, considers that Cerdá and Aldeguer could have engaged in environmental prevarication by omitting the mandatory inspections of the companies and farms that generated these illegal discharges, despite knowing that desalination plants were being used in the area without authorization. , which generate pollutants that were discarded directly on the Mar Menor.

On January 19, the Prosecutor's Office already requested sentences of 21 months in prison for the two former senior officials, in addition to fines of 5,760 euros and special disqualification from holding any public office for 9 years.

For their part, the popular accusations in the case, made up of the environmental groups Greenpeace, Ecologists in Action, ANSE and SEO/Birdlife, raise the requests for prison sentences for both defendants to up to three years and the fines for up to 8,640 euros.

For the agricultural companies that will go to trial, the prosecutor requested sentences of between five months and six years in prison and fines of between 1,800 and 1.7 million euros for the damage caused.

The judge now imposes bail on these companies that add up to a total amount of 16.25 million euros and declares that the matter will be tried in the Provincial Court of Murcia.

He also dismisses a total of eight appeals filed by the defendants, which were based on the lack of sufficient evidence or the lack of jurisdiction of the court.

And he recalls in his order that this "is not a general cause of each and every one of the factors that may have influenced the degradation" of the Mar Menor, because that would be "an unfathomable issue", but rather focuses only on action of certain political positions and agricultural companies that could have affected that ecosystem.

A second part of this same case has recently been divided into 39 different legal proceedings, one for each of the accused companies, in order to individualize the possible crimes committed in each case.

Regarding the second piece, recently split, the instructor dismisses in a resolution the appeals filed against the order that agreed to the extension of the proceedings due to lack of jurisdiction of the court number 2 of Murcia.

The magistrate insists on the need for it due to the complexity of the actions that had to be carried out and the short time remaining for the expiration of the instruction period and recalls that this resolution was prior to the inhibition.

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