The Diplomat
The European Public Prosecutor’s Office has taken over the investigation of the ‘Mediator case’ concerning the now retired general of the Guardia Civil Francisco Espinosa, the only person charged in provisional prison, and the contracts linked to an EU project in the Sahel, although the investigations into the rest of the plot allegedly led by the former socialist deputy Juan Bernardo Fuentes Curbelo, alias ‘Tito Berni’, will continue in the Court of Instruction Number 4 Santa Cruz de Tenerife.
According to legal sources consulted by Europa Press, Judge Ángeles Lorenzo-Cáceres has sent this part of the case to the European Public Prosecutor’s Office after the latter claimed jurisdiction over it because it concerns a project, GARSI-Sahel, financed by the European Commission and managed by the International and Ibero-American Foundation for Public Administration and Policy (FIIAPP), of which the former general was the head.
The investigating judge, in an order dated 22 March, had sent the proceedings carried out to date in the ‘Mediator case’ to the European Public Prosecutor’s Office to determine whether any of the acts under investigation fell within its jurisdiction.
Specifically, Lorenzo-Cáceres has agreed in the decree issued this Monday to “place at the disposal” of the European Public Prosecutor’s Office the investigations carried out on this matter, as well as the general himself, so that it will now be the Community institution which will decide whether or not he continues in provisional detention.
The legal sources point out that the proceedings sent to the European Public Prosecutor’s Office also refer to the participation of the businessman José Suárez Estévez, known as ‘El Drones’ by the plot.
According to the summary of the case, to which Europa Press has had access, this businessman would have been awarded up to three contracts for the supply of equipment for GARSI-Sahel: one in 2020 for Mauritania and Niger, and another in 2021 for Mali.
However, General Espinosa denied before the investigating judge that he favoured Suárez Estévez to obtain these contracts with the Rapid Action Groups for Surveillance and Intervention in the Sahel (GARSI-Sahel).
Except for this part, the Canarian court will continue investigating this alleged plot headed by Fuentes Curbelo; his nephew Taishet Fuentes; General Espinosa; and the Canarian businessman Antonio Navarro Tacoronte, the ‘mediator’.
