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14 January 2004
LANZAROTE – An MP who was jailed for bribery and perverting the course of justice resigned Wednesday.
Dimas Martin was jailed for three years for buying the vote of another town councillor from the ruling centre-right Popular Party in 1995.
Martin, who was an MP in the regional government of the Canary Islands, was also fined EUR 180,000 and suspended from all political duties.
Martín was convicted of purchasing a vote from former PP town councillor Juan Carlos Hernández Cabrera in 1995 during the municipal elections in Arrecife, on Lanzarote in the Canary Islands.
The prison sentence was delivered in February 2000 at a provincial hearing and ratified by Spain’s Supreme Court.
Martin has a history of corruption.
In 1995, he was jailed for bribery after he accepted EUR 3,005 from a foreigner in exchange for not applying a town planning by-law that would have resulted in tearing down a wall on his property.
The sentence was delayed after Martín appealed. But his request for amnesty was later dismissed.
Martín is also due to stand trial at the end of this month on charges of embezzlement in the Teguise Agro-industrial Complex case.
Prosecutors have asked for 14 years in prison and 15 years of disqualification from political office.
The charges are related with the activities of Emamtsa, a company set up by the council of the town of Teguise in Lanzarote.
Martín, a former mayor of Teguise and president of Emamtsa, is accused of two offences involving public finances, one against the social security and a charge of embezzlement of public funds.
Prosecutors are also calling for Martín to pay a fine of EUR5 million and for him to be banned from obtaining social security or other tax benefits or incentives for a 12-year period.
Martin was first jailed in 1979 for the fraudulent sale of apartments in the “Cocoteros” urbanisation or development.
In October 1998, he was sentenced to six months after the Teguise town council, of which he was then mayor, carried out illegal construction work without building permits.
But he was later pardoned by the Government in January 1999.
[Copyright EFE with Expatica]
Subject: Spanish news