The 20 accused of fraud for the expansion of the port of Gijón are acquitted

The National Court has acquitted the 20 defendants in the trial held for the expansion of the Port of Gijón. He considers that there is no evidence that their action was to defraud a public entity, that they made any illegal decision or that they failed in their duties as public officials.

Among those who sat on the bench and have now been acquitted are those who at the time of the events were president of the Gijón Port Authority, Fernando Palao; the director of the Port Authority, José Luis Díaz Rato, and the general director of Transport and Ports, Fernando Menéndez Rexach.

The Anti-Corruption Prosecutor's Office, the State Attorney's Office representing the State Ports and the Gijón Port Authority, the Observatori Ciudadanu dAsturies (OCAN) as popular prosecution and the private prosecution on behalf of a citizen and the San Lorenzo del Alto Aboño attributed to the 20 defendants a crime of fraud against the Administration. Some defendants also faced a crime of administrative prevarication.

The Chamber points out in its judgment the “ineffectiveness that the procedurally established filters have shown in this case to prevent events with little or no incriminating power from reaching the oral trial phase, especially with respect to any of the defendants in which their participation in the facts prosecuted has been merely episodic”.

The magistrates consider that the facts analyzed constitute a crime since no collusion can be seen between those responsible for the Port of Gijón Authority and the representatives of the companies integrated into the Dique Torres Joint Venture.. “On the contrary, there is only repeatedly the deep discrepancy between one and the other in the course of the long relationship they maintained,” he explains.

The court also takes into account the judgment that the Court of Accounts issued on November 15, 2019, in which the non-existence of any damage to the public funds of the Gijón Port Authority is declared.. “There is no evidence that the actions of the defendants or any of them obeyed the purpose of defrauding a public entity. On the contrary, the evidence carried out only indicates the action of those responsible for the Port Authority to successfully carry out a huge and highly complex work”.

In addition, they consider that there is no breach of the duties that those public officials had based on their positions.. “Although some of their decisions could be questioned, none of them constitutes an illegal decision given the dilemmas they faced,” he concludes.