The Fiscalía of Baleares has decided to file a complaint against the second vice president of the Consell de Mallorca and councilor for Sports, Environment and Rural Affairs, Pedro Bestard, over an alleged irregular use of the official vehicles of the island institution.
According to reports from "Última Hora" and "Diario de Mallorca" and confirmed to Europa Press by sources familiar with the case, the Public Prosecutor's Office is taking this measure after an investigation into a possible crime of embezzlement initiated as a result of the complaint filed by the Socialist Group in the Consell de Mallorca on July 2.
For the Socialists, the conduct attributed to Bestard could fit crimes of continued embezzlement of public funds, administrative misconduct, and documentary falsification.
In its brief, the PSIB reproached the Vox leader for having habitually and repeatedly resorted to several cars from the Consell's vehicle fleet for strictly private purposes and, in some cases, exclusive use, causing expenses in fuel and other consumption without the required authorization.
The socialist group asked the Fiscalía to take testimony from the technical secretary of the Environment department, which Bestard heads, from the technical secretary of the Presidency, the secretary general, and the auditor. Likewise, it requested copies of all files linked to the use of the vehicles assigned to Environment, including travel logs, fuel consumption, maintenance operations, geolocation data, and any other related documentation.
After the case became public last May, the Consell de Mallorca commissioned several technical reports that concluded that the second vice president had used three official cars exclusively without having express authorization for it, since there was no record that those vehicles were assigned on an exclusive basis.
Nevertheless, those internal reports, ordered by the president of the Consell, Llorenç Galmés, admitted that this way of proceeding "is not an appropriate conduct", but at the same time noted that it cannot be "determined categorically that there was improper use".
After learning of the conclusions of the technical services, the island institution chose not to adopt disciplinary or political measures against Bestard and considered the matter closed with the approval of an internal instruction aimed at regulating the use of official vehicles.