The PP candidate for the Constitutional Court Enrique Arnaldo declared before the judge that he had paid the former president of the Balearic Islands Jaume Matas for assignments that included the sale of a 14,000 hectare site in Belize, considered a tax haven until 2019. The land was owned by the Almeria businessman Francisco Lirola, according to the statement as investigated that took place in the framework of the Palma Arena case of the professor of the Rey Juan Carlos University, to which ‘El Periódico de España’ has had access.
In his account, Arnaldo assured that the former president of the Balearic Islands, who has been sentenced for corruption to more than three years in prison, also dealt with the sale of a biodiesel plant in Galicia and of hotel complexes in Panama, Brazil and Uruguay, all of them “of great importance and value”, completed the now candidate of the PP to the Constitutional Court.
Matas would also have intervened, always according to Arnaldo’s testimony before the magistrate, in hotel projects in the United States and the Caribbean that would have been offered, among others, to the Canarian businessman Santana Cazorla. AND Matas’ intervention, he continues, allowed him to offer his clients complementary services.
Matas sold plots in Uruguay and Panama
“Of all these orders Mr. Matas obtained an objective result in the sale of plots in Panama and Uruguay“Arnaldo completed in his statement, in which he was not able to provide the data to identify the investors. And he did so hiding the fact that this information only appeared in the offices with which his company collaborated in the different countries.
According to his statement, the future magistrate of the TC met Matas in a formal ceremony in 1997 and then they coincided on other occasions, although their relations could not then be classified as friendship but as “mere knowledge.” It was at the end of 2006 when Matas called him to his office, the next electoral process being close, and asked him to do a report on “the limits of public power in an institutional electoral campaign“, for an amount that he does not claim to remember at the time but which constituted a minor contract, below 12,000 euros.
A common job among “those who leave politics”
About why he came to him precisely for this job, Arnaldo replied to Judge José Castro that he did it because there were not many experts in electoral law with the prestige that he had. Later, during a meal, Matas told him that he had left politics “totally” and that he worked for a hotel group that he did not mention, and asked him for a job.
It would be, according to the former minister, services “usually provided by those who leave politics” such as offering relationships, identification of projects for investments, customer acquisition and financial economic consulting. At this meal, Matas told the lawyer of the Cortes and professor that he did not receive any compensation as former president of the Balearic Islands, and Arnaldo warned him that he could not carry out orders connected with the islands he governed.
Purchase of lots and buildings
Thus, the former Balearic president told him that he would move to Washington, where he had influential relationships, and also offered his knowledge of hotel practices and legislative consultancy in Central America, aspects that the future Constitutional Court magistrate considered “favorable” to which he added the search for investors to purchase lots, buildings and hotel complexes in Panama, Ivory Coast and Punta del Este (Uruguay).
“How Mr. Matas felt comfortable with this task“, adds Arnaldo in his statement before the judge, a verbal agreement and the former president of the Balearic Islands requested a provision of funds of between 25,000 and 27,000 euros to meet the expenses of the procedures.
Matas was obliged to account not for how he spent that money but for the result of his efforts, what he did by phone or email, or every time he returned to Madrid every two months. At that time, Arnaldo did not demand immediate objective results., as they were at the “dawn of the contract.” It is at this point that Arnaldo recounted the episode in Belize.
Matas did not charge commission
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At another point during the interrogation, Arnaldo states that the contributions he made to Señor Matas regarding consulting projects on modernization of the State in America they were of the utmost importancea, and that he never charged a commission for any of the achievements. At this time, Judge Castro told him that this specialization could be misunderstood if they later had to go to external hiring.
Arnaldo also pointed out in his statements before the judge in the ‘Palma Arena’ case that I was not aware that there might be any incompatibility in hiring the former president of the Balearic Islands, and denied that he could have used his legal office to launder money. If he had proposed, he would have refused, according to his statement.
Reference-www.elperiodico.com