A number of the 95 people facing charges in the Malaya corruption case, regarding irregularities at the Marbella Town Hall, have reached plea bargains and seen large reductions in their possible sentences as a result of admitting their crimes. However some of the agreements being reached are not liked by everyone, especially when the penal and political are mixed. Back in 2008 some 70 court cases against ex members of the GIL administration in Marbella were avoided, most of them for the illegal concession of building licences, in exchange for guilty pleas and each of the accused spending just three years in jail. It was a pact criticised at the time by both Marbella Town Hall and the Junta de Andalucía with Ángeles Muñoz, Mayor of Marbella declaring ‘what they have done in Marbella has cost them little’. Now in the ongoing Malaya case, which is now 13 months old, and on Monday reaches its 100th session, businessman Ismael Pérez Peña has seen his prison sentence demanded by the prosecutor reduced from 11 years to just two years and three months after he admitted the crimes of which he is accused. He can even escape jail entirely by paying 225,000 €. Peña admitted paying backhanders of two million € to the man at the centre of the case, the ex Marbella Real Estate Assessor, Juan Antonio Roca, and the ex Mayor, Marisol Yagüe, a statement which has complicated life for those two accused. The court also notes that the confession saves time and expense, something which is looked on favourably by the Justice Administration. Roca is now thought to have collected no less than 33.3 million € in backhanders from businessmen with interests in Marbella.
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