Thursday, September 16, 2010

Mucky business

The Brugal case was opened again at the beginning of this month after the summer holidays were over.

Originally only Orihuela was involved but now other municipalities in the Vega Baja have been implicated. It is alleged that three of the local mayors and two councilmen received envelopes with money just before the 2007 elections. The money came from Ángel Fenol, an industrialist connected to the company who were later awarded the contract for refuse collection in Orihuela and other neighbouring towns.The amounts of money are said to vary between 6 and 9,000 Euros and were made to bribe the candidates into awarding the contract to Fenol’s company.

The towns all became under the control of the PP, no socialist councils were involved. However, it is alleged that Francisco Lancharr (councillor for the PP in Pilar de la Horadada) and Aurelio Murcia (spokesperson for the PP in Bigastro) also received envelopes – presumably because it was possible that they would win the elections in their municipalities.

The police claim that Fenoll and his son had made phone calls just before the elections to organise the distribution of the “brown envelopes”. From the conversations that took place, it appears that this was not the first time that Fenol had offered monies to PP candidates.

1 comment:

Pete said...

As I get older I realise more and more the simple truth in a wonderful quote from the 'Italian Job'.

Mr. Bridger is telling Camp Freddie to procure the services of an eminent professor and we get the following beautiful exchange:

'Camp' Freddie: But Mr. Bridger, what if the Professor's not bent?

Mr. Bridger: Camp Freddie, everyone in the *world* is bent!

And it's true. Everyone is at least a little bit bent, but most only enough so that the fear of getting caught is enough to stop them doing things. It's a very small step to the other side of the line.