“I’ve signed lots of Marbella Town Hall deals, even leaning on my car boot if they called me from the office. I only signed if everything was in order, but I never had all the information”. Julián Muñoz was first to be questioned at Monday’s trial and was the first to resort to amnesia when asked about his involvement in granting planing permission for a detached house on rustic land. “I can’t remember anything, it happened a long time ago. What’s more I’m not even aware of the existence of the plot”, said Muñoz, who in July 1998 presided over a government committee that gave Artola Inversiones permission to start building.

A few months previously, in February 1998, Pedro Román - then acting mayor - approved, along with other councillors, the licence for the basic plans to build a house on the site in question. Nevertheless the land had been reserved for a school in 1984. The deputy mayor in the days of the late Jesús Gil also claimed on Monday that he couldn’t remember and couldn’t even be sure that he was present at the committee meeting, as he presided over lots of others he can’t remember. “I accept the political responsibility because my signature was on the paper, but even after I stopped attending the committee meetings my name kept appearing on the paperwork”, explained Román, who is still in prison, pending payment of the highest bail set in the Malaya case: one million euros. Both Muñoz and Román claimed that licences were granted as long as they were accompanied by favourable technical reports which were produced by the municipal secretary Leopoldo Barrantes.

Also declaring on Monday were the other former councillors present at the meetings in question, with the exception of Juan Antonio Yagüe, brother to the former mayor, Marisol, whose whereabouts is still unknown.

Barrantes

On Tuesday it was the turn of witnesses, including the former municipal secretary Leopoldo Barrantes, whose name was mentioned by several of the accused. The secretary denied that the paperwork regarding the committee meetings had been manipulated as some of the councillors had declared on Monday.

Regards