Mayor off the hook

By Dave Jones
A judge has been told to find proof that a crime was committed or shelve the investigation into the sale of rural land by Torrevieja's mayor which netted him more than five million euros.

The case dates back to a complaint made in 2005 after Pedro Ángel Hernández Mateo allegedly bought land in Almoradí for 180,000 euros and sold it to a Torrevieja building company for 5.4 million euros more than two years later.

Sr Hernández Mateo was accused of using privileged information and influence peddling.

The regional supreme court (TSJ) in Valencia ruled on the case in an edict published on Friday.

Judges recognised that the mayor and his wife had made a huge windfall through an ‘extremely profitable' sale.

"It has brought them an extraordinary profit," the edict states.

They recognise ‘a huge difference between the purchase price and the sale price', adding that the lucrative sale to a building company ‘could have offered the appearance of a speculative deal obtained with an advantage'.

However ‘this conjecture' is merely speculation ‘which does not go any further than that' and is not backed up with any evidence to ‘support the claim that the operation of buying and selling the land by Hernández Mateo and his wife was the result of having access to privileged information'.

The regional court has now returned the file to Torrevieja's court number 4 with a brief to find firm evidence of criminal action or to end the investigation.

Sr Hernández Mateo said he was very satisfied the TSJ had ruled in his favour.

"I said on the first day that there was nothing in this and this has now been ratified by the TSJ," he said.

He added that he had suffered ‘insults and slander' for four-and-a-half years and hoped it would now be resolved once and for all.

"The damage that this has caused to my family is irreparable," he added.

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