The Supreme Court (TS) has summoned the Sumar En Comú Podem deputy in Congress Félix Alonso Cantorné for this Monday, as an investigated person, for an alleged crime of prevarication linked to the direct award of contracts to several companies during his time as mayor of Altafulla (Tarragona), between 2011 and 2019.
In parallel, the investigating judge of the procedure, Vicente Magro, plans to take statements from twelve people as witnesses. Among them is, according to a provision to which Europa Press has had access, Joan Ignasi Elena, ERC deputy in the Parliament and former Catalan Minister of the Interior.
The High Court of Justice of Catalonia decided to investigate Elena as a necessary cooperator in the alleged crime of prevarication for which the Supreme Court keeps Alonso charged.
The Criminal Chamber of the high court agreed last April to open a case against the deputy of the Lower House after receiving a reasoned statement from the Civil Section of the Court of First Instance of El Vendrell (Tarragona), which had initiated preliminary proceedings on these facts.
The case focuses on the contracting carried out by the City Council headed by Cantorné —currently protected by his status as a deputy— with different companies, allegedly outside the applicable regulations on public procurement.
Through minor contracts
In light of the documentation submitted, the judges of the Criminal Chamber of the TS indicated that Cantorné, "presumably, to give an appearance of legality and knowing that it was not, resorted to a dynamic of contracting through the figure of the minor contract, thus evading the requirements of publicity".
As they added, "and it allowed direct award and enabled an arbitrary choice of the awardee, instead of resorting to the corresponding procedure, on occasions, even without resorting to any procedure, with which, in principle, we can consider that there are indications that point to the elements of a presumed crime of administrative prevarication".
The judges also stressed that this does not imply limiting the investigation solely to that crime, since "this irregular way of contracting has been accompanied by a dynamic of invoicing to make payments for services, which could not be ruled out as pointing to some type of irregularity, if it turns out to be the case from the pace of the investigation".
For this reason, they resolved to open proceedings "with the aim of confirming, if applicable, expanding the existence of the indications that have been indicated, as well as discarding them, if that were the result of the investigation".
Sources from the Comuns told Europa Press, after learning of the decision to open the case, that they maintain their full confidence in the parliamentarian's presumption of innocence.