INTERVIEW WITH THE FORMER MAYOR OF ESTEPONA
04.02.09 - 15:03 -
ESTEPONA. The former mayor during the interview at a local hotel. / JOSELE-LANZA
“I’m a better person now than I was before I went to prison”
Antonio Barrientos’s life was turned upside down on June 17th last year. The police burst into his house with a search warrant. It was the start of “Operation Astapa”. He was arrested and spent seven months in prison. On December 10th he was released after putting up 150,000 euros in bail. He has been charged with bribery, influence peddling, embezzlement and money laundering.
What is behind these charges?
I don’t know. When we know all the details of the accusation I will be able to respond. But to this day I still don’t know why I am being accused.
You mother and your brother have also been charged.
If my situation seems terribly unfair then the involvement of my mother is just indecent. There is no reason. My mother’s assets are a family inheritance; it’s all very clear. My mother’s charges have no grounds and that will be proved. The same goes for my brother.
You appeared before the judge after four days in custody.
It was a ten or 15 minute interview in which I answered the judge’s and the public prosecutor’s questions and they sent me to prison.
What did they ask you?
You’ll have to allow me to respect the secrecy of the investigation and not answer that. There were only three or four questions, no more.
And from those questions you couldn’t deduce what they are accusing you of?
No. What I know is that I trust a lot of people but I only answer for myself. If someone has done something wrong, let the police investigate. Everything that has appeared in the press makes no sense. With all due respect. The stuff about me being the leader of a ring with, for example, Señor Crespo (ex-GIL councillor, also charged), someone I have reported to the courts nine times and who took me to court because he says I called him a thief, is nonsense. That’s just one example. I’m not a police officer, or a prosecutor, or a judge. I was the mayor, and if I found out about anything untoward I informed the Public Prosecution Department or the national auditing tribunal.
How many times did you have to report something?
Between reports to the auditing tribunal and the courts, around 20.
Did these reports refer to irregularities before you became mayor or situations you witnessed while you were there?
Situations I learned about when I arrived. If I see someone doing something dishonest, I dismiss them immediately.
What happened with the cases you reported?
I haven’t heard any more.
Since you left the Town Hall, the new mayor has made the authority’s serious financial situation public, especially the swollen workforce.
The current mayor already knew all about the staff situation because he was the councillor responsible for that department and a member of the board of administrators for the municipal companies. The situation at Estepona Town Hall is no better or worse than at many other local authorities. We had already foreseen financial difficulties as we couldn’t rely so much on income from planning permission. Measures were taken in 2007 with a local taxation reform that everyone approved, even those in power now.
Did the Town Hall make money from planning deals?
There is a great deal of confusion here. This is nothing like what happened in Marbella, where illegal properties were built on land reserved for public amenities or with unfavourable technical reports. Here no one re-zoned land. In reality Town Halls can’t do that; they just make proposals and the Junta de Andalucía decides. We always respected their decisions. Proposals concerning planning agreements were handed into the regional department of Public Works before they were voted by the council, even though we were not obliged to. We also gave them to the local government commission, the auditor and the secretary before the council meetings. We have never speculated.
What about the huge debt with the Social Security?
The Social Security hadn’t been paid since the days of Miguel Castro, in the nineties, and the first local government to start to pay the installments was mine. That should be made clear.
For several years you governed with the help of councillors from the PES, a party formed by ex GIL members. Later you had serious differences and they were accused and sent to prison. Do you regret having teamed up with them?
That decision was not made by Antonio Barrientos, but by the Socialist Party on a provincial and regional level. During the election campaign I announced that I would never share government with those people, because our ideas were diametrically opposed and I didn’t trust them.
What do you think of how your party reacted to your arrest?
The party, as an institution, disappointed me. They treated me like dirt. I realise they weren’t going to get up and pat me on the back, but I made the gesture of resigning, giving up my seat on the council and asking for my party membership to be provisionally suspended until all this was sorted out. On one hand people are so full of “rule of law” and “presumption of innocence” and then in my case this was not respected. Parties use people like they use tissues. On a personal level, however, I’ve had calls from a lot of people, not just from my party but from others as well.
What do you think of the councillors who have been charged but have kept their seats?
I can only answer for myself. Let others judge what they do. That much I’ve learned. I’ve also seen that in the last few months some people have behaved despicably and miserably.
Who do you mean?
There are people, as everyone knows, who are two-faced. They say one thing in private and another in public, but never with direct accusations but with insinuations and suggestions about the actions of their colleagues. And then, when they are face to face with them they tell them they think they are the greatest and most honourable. I think that is despicable both personally and politically.
Are you referring to the current mayor, David Valadez?
As you insist, yes. He acts as if he has fallen from the sky, but he was PSOE spokesperson while I was mayor and a member, along with me, of the planning commissions. And he never said anything. As an act of generosity - because the assembly had not voted for him - I put him on the list for the elections. I wonder why, if we were such shameless thieves, he joined us on the list. In prison I read that he reported his predecessor. But he has nothing to denounce, because my actions have been his; everything I approved, he voted for.
