Tuesday, October 21, 2008

Corruption in San Fulgencio

Manuel Barrera, ex- councillor for Property and a member of the Agrupación Independiente del Mediterráneo (AIM) party in San Fulgencio was picked up by the National Police accompanied by the Anti-corruption public prosecutor, Felipe Briones, at 9:15 yesterday morning. At 11am he was taken to his office where officers continued their investigations until 1pm.

The councilman was then taken to his luxury villa in the La Marina urbanisation. There, agents of he National Police , confiscated documents and computer equipment.

At 3pm he was apparently taken under guard to Alicante.

It seems that Barrera is accused of accepting a 5,000€ bribe in exchange of allowing plans for “La Cantera" development to be passed in Council. In a video that was recorded in a restaurant in Valencia he was seen accepting "the sweetener".

Barrera has admitted accepting the money, part of a total of 240,000€ that was discussed, but said that he had been accepting ‘on behalf of his party (AIM). A spokesman for the party has denied any knowledge of both the incident and the money.

The “La Cantera" plan included 4,000 houses, a golf course, hotels, a casino and a marina.

The Mayoress, Trinidad Martínez of the PSOE party, points out that no other councillors are involved in this investigation. She has been praised by the Public Prosecutor for acting swiftly once the alleged corruption had been discovered.

This sort of scandal leads to mistrust of public administration. In this case it is mistrust of the AIM group who some locals feel are "quieren todas las perras para la urbanización". They say, "sólo hay dinero e intereses personales en la política municipal" and believe that the Council should be dissolved, as it was in Marbella where the council is run by an independant manager.

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