Malaya case finally gets underway in a specially extended hall in the Málaga Ciudad de la Justicia on September 27

What will be Spain’s largest corruption trial to date, the Malaya case based in Marbella, gets underway on September 27 in Málaga. 

The case broke in Marbella on March 29 2006, when police vans raided the Town Hall in the town and started to remove documents. 
It was the same at the town planning offices on the Golden Mile, and it was soon clear that it was the town’s real estate assessor, Juan Antonio Roca, was at the centre of the investigations ordered by Judge Miguel Ángel Torres.

Five years on there are now 95 accused, and the instruction case summary considers that 19 local real estate promoters paid regular backhanders between 2002 and 2006 of more than 33 million € to Roca and his cohorts. In return they were granted permission to build on land classified for other uses. One of the promoters, Aifos, has admitted that they paid Roca.

Roca is said to have spent the money, or more than 27 million € of it, on property, art, antique cars and horse carriages, but the police have found it hard to trace, as much is thought to have gone abroad in a complicated network of 24 front men acting for Roca.

All those charged in the case, including the ex Mayors of Marbella, Julián Muñoz Palomo, and Marisol Yagüe, have all denied any implication in the irregularities, although it seems that all the defence lawyers are keeping their strategies quiet ahead of the start of the hearing, although El País reports that some of them have tried to ‘flood’ the oral hearings by calling as many as 101 witnesses. One of the accused, Madrid lawyer Montserrat Corulla, has claimed that her signature on 13 documents has been falsified, while others denied that a set of initials have anything to do with them.

Side cases have also resulted, such as the money laundering charges faced by Isabel Pantoja, and the alleged bribing of Judge De Urquía by Roca.

It may be a case that truth is stranger than fiction as a new police novel claims to give its readers all the keys to the Malaya case. Written by the journalists, Hector Barbotta and Juan Cano, the book called ‘La última gota’ – (The last drop) was presented last Friday.

Read more: http://www.typicallyspanish.com/news/publish/article_27235.shtml#ixzz1050TsKJq