Ada Colau will have to testify as being investigated in March for pressure and fine the investment fund Vauras

Charge of the Mossos d'Esquadra in the eviction of three young people from the so-called Llavors block, in May 2021. Massimiliano Minocri (EL PAÍS)

The mayoress of Barcelona, ​​Ada Colau, her councilors for Housing (Lucía Martín) and the district of Sants (Marc Serra) and a municipal official responsible for the anti-eviction unit, have been summoned to testify next March as being investigated for pressuring and fine the Vauras Investment fund, owner of what is known as the Llavors block, a building in which tenants and squatters lived, on Lleida street.

The summons, made public this Tuesday by the mayoress, comes after the Provincial Court reopened in April last year the case that had been previously filed by a judge and in which Vauras Investments accused the councilors and the worker of prevarication, embezzlement and coercion.

The municipal officials have been summoned on March 10 and 13, when there will be two and a half months to go before the elections.

The mayor has been "very calm", since she, she has said, "we have nothing to hide", for which she trusts that the case will be filed as in "10 other complaints that have been filed".

Colau has attacked companies whose interests are affected by municipal actions or the application of current legislation and "misuse" justice, with "resources and resources", "until they get the image of a mayor declaring".

The company filed the complaint after the City Council fined it a penalty of 417,000 euros for refusing to offer social rent to vulnerable people who lived in the building who were entitled to this rent, in accordance with Law 24/2015.

After several eviction attempts, the Llavors bloc was evicted by the Mossos in May 2021, in the first days of Pere Aragonès as head of the Generalitat, a performance with police charges and the presence of CUP deputies that raised a great deal of dust. policy.

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In the first instance, the complaint was inadmissible by the judge, who understood that crimes were attributed "without rigor or precision", which "did not even have the minimum and indicative criminal appearance", Colau recalled during an appearance.

Councilor Marc Serra, who is also Councilor for Citizenship Rights, explained that the Court argues the reopening and summons "following the jurisprudence in favor of carrying out a minimum of procedures before filing" and has indicated that "it not only reopens the case, rather, it obliges the judge to cite the defendants as being investigated.”

Serra has specified that the crimes that are charged "without being linked to any specific action" are those of prevarication, embezzlement and coercion.

He pointed out that initially, there were 10 crimes. "This procedural bad faith of some companies, such as the case of the Vauras international capital fund, ends up causing an abuse of the judicial system that leads us to unprecedented situations, such as a mayor having to testify about facts with which it has no relation”.

"These lawsuits remind us that we are here to defend the people"

Colau has been confident that this case will be filed, "as has happened in 10 other lawsuits."

When recalling the case, he has criticized the "general practice of companies that buy real estate and make life impossible for those who live to speculate, resell or rent at prices that are impossible for the residents of the city" and has defended that the City Council fined Vauras when he was required to "comply with current regulations, apply Law 24/2015 by which they had to offer social rent to inhabitants in vulnerable situations."

"The investment funds have a lot of money and lawyers and they appealed the inadmissibility," said the mayoress, who has been "very calm."

"I have no doubt that it will end up filed," she said, while she has vindicated the work of "councillors and public workers."

Colau has lamented "a pattern that is repeated in the city, by certain economic sectors of the real estate sector or the water company, that when we have set limits or have defended compliance with the law and they encounter an obstacle from the City Council, they begin to a misuse of the law and they abuse legal resources to file complaints and resources and resources until they get a reopening and the image of a mayor declaring, which generates headlines with cases that end up being filed”.

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