The nightlife businessman Bartolomé Cursach upon his arrival at the Audiencia de Palma, this Monday, for the first session of the trial of the case baptized with his surname. ATIENZA (EFE)
At half past nine this Monday morning, the cameras of the press photographers pointed towards a historic cafeteria located on the same avenue where the Provincial Court of Palma is located.
The nightlife tycoon of the capital of Mallorca, Bartolomé Cursach, was drinking coffee before walking the few meters that separated him from the court.
This Monday the trial for the
Cursach case began,
the biggest case of police corruption in the history of the islands, on the alleged collusion of the businessman with agents of the Local Police of Palma to benefit his businesses.
A total of 23 people have sat on the defendant's bench, although the session has ended with 17, after the court has exonerated six as all charges against them have been dropped.
The private accusations have attacked the reduction of sentences proposed by the prosecutor.
Cursach, the main businessman in his sector in Mallorca, faces 18 months in prison for crimes of belonging to a criminal organization and prevarication.
Next to him, they are processed
number two
of his business conglomerate and three other workers (who have been exonerated);
14 agents and commanders of the Palma Local Police and one official.
They are accused of a range of crimes, from belonging to a criminal organization to prevarication, through threats or revealing secrets.
Harassment by several local police officers of nightclubs in the main entertainment areas to benefit Cursach's businesses is being investigated.
The first session of the trial has focused on preliminary questions, which will last for weeks.
The first statements of the accused could arrive after the summer.
More information
The trial of the 'Cursach case' begins, the largest investigation of police corruption in Palma
The trial arrives marked by the changes in the story of the Prosecutor's Office.
The anti-corruption prosecutor of the Balearic Islands, Juan Carrau, together with the one appointed by the State Attorney General's Office, Tomás Herranz, modified, ten days after the start, the indictment and requested the dismissal of the case for seven people, significantly varying the account of the events and leaving out some episodes that focused part of the investigation.
During the first minutes of the session, this Monday, Carrau has defended this decision, which he has justified in the need to "not surprise" the defenses and avoid "a defenselessness" of some of the accused.
"There were accusations made based on [sic] testimonies that the Prosecutor's Office considers to be false, so it was contradictory to maintain the accusation," said Carrau.
A procedure supported by the Lawyers of the Autonomous Community, which has also withdrawn the accusation that it maintained for prevarication against the former Director General of Tourism, Pilar Carbonell, and against an official.
"The Autonomous Community withdraws the accusation because it has to serve the general interests and has to act objectively," said the Community's lawyer, María Ángeles Berrocal.
“Studying the entire case, which is what we are used to doing, it is not only that we did not find a resolution to impute as prevaricator the two people whom we considered in our provisional qualification brief, we do not see any way out to maintain the accusation and make an alternative qualification with the same facts, ”added the lawyer.
The lawyers of the main beneficiaries of the reduction of the Prosecutor's Office, such as Cursach's, Enrique Molina, have supported the changes.
"It is provided for in the Law of Criminal Procedure, you cannot invoke the nullity of a document that can never be null" said the lawyer.
Nullity
The private accusations, which represent some of the businessmen harmed by the alleged crimes committed by the police officers, have requested the annulment of the Prosecutor's brief, considering that it is not justified and that it has no place in this part of the process.
"We understand that all of this has been a series of traps, suspicious procedural irregularities that we would not want to think had their origin in such a powerful defendant as Mr. Cursach is," said lawyer Teresa Bueyes, who represents one of the affected businessmen and whom the president of the room, Samantha Romero, has cut sharply.
After retiring to deliberate, the court has admitted the changes in the Prosecutor's brief and has exonerated six people, on whom no accusation weighed.
"Not only does it not cause any defenselessness, but it is an act of professional courtesy in order to define the object of prosecution," stressed Romero, also president of the court that tried the
Nóos case.
The court has reserved more than 150 sessions, until April 2023, to try the case.
The investigation began at the hands of an investigating judge in 2009 and passed to the table of Judge Manuel Penalva and the anti-corruption prosecutor Miguel Ángel Subirán just a year later.
The investigations were rushed and several separate pieces were born from the main cause that is now being prosecuted that came to implicate politicians from the Palma City Council, who were later exonerated after the proceedings against them were filed.
During the investigation, dozens of witnesses and investigators paraded through the court, some of whom ended up in provisional prison.
The judge and the prosecutor who developed the bulk of the investigation are about to be prosecuted for threats to witnesses and prevarication.