Last Friday it was the turn of the people of Villanueva de la Concepción to witness their Town Hall raided by Guardia Civil officers and their mayor taken away under arrest. As in previous cases of mayors getting in trouble with the law, the matter is connected with accusations of corrupt practice, or more specifically bribery in relation to planning permission. In the case of Villanueva, however, the mayor, 27-year-old Ernesto Silva, is accused of offering urban planning favours, not in exchange for money, but for passing a university exam. The operation has been codenamed ‘Operación Cátedra’ (the Spanish word for a university professorship).

Silva accompanied the Seprona officers while they searched the town hall offices and was later placed under arrest and taken to the Guardia Civil headquarters in Malaga. Officers left the town hall building with half a dozen boxes full of documents.

At the same time officers arrived at Malaga University with a warrant to search the office of a professor in Financial Law, identified as J. F. H. G. The professor was also placed under arrest and more documents were taken away for examination. Meanwhile a similar operation was taking place at the city centre office of lawyer M. G.

All three suspects were held over the weekend in different Guardia Civil headquarters. They were questioned by a judge in an Antequera court on Monday and were released without bail with charges pending. The court originally ordered that the details of the investigation be kept secret, but just one day after the release of the suspects the judge decided to make the details public. It was revealed that the professor’s mobile phone had been seized in April by order of the court, and that Silva’s phone has been bugged for two months. Two ‘interviews’ involving the accused were also captured on video with judicial authorisation.

Alleged favours

Previous to these revelations, sources had also indicated that the investigation was a result of a report filed by a member of the general public regarding alleged irregularities relating to a planning enquiry opened by the town hall. It has been suggested that the university professor was asked by a third party to pass the mayor in exchange for a favourable resolution to the enquiry. The professor has been to the town hall in the capacity of consultant concerning several enquiries opened by the town hall regarding planning issues.

Support

On Saturday around 300 residents of Villanueva de la Concepción gathered outside the town hall to call for the release of their mayor. Many of them wore or carried posters bearing a photograph of Ernesto Silva with words such as ‘dignity’, ‘honesty’ and ‘justice now’. Members of the interim committee that has been at the helm of the town hall since it was declared an independent municipality just four months ago, defended the mayor and criticised the way in which Silva was being held “like a common criminal” and accused the authorities of arresting him on a Friday afternoon on purpose, knowing that he would have to spend the whole weekend in a Guardia Civil cell until the courts opened again on Monday.

On Sunday around a hundred villagers staged another protest outside the building where Ernesto Silva was being held in Malaga. Francisco Mérida, deputy president of the committee, said that the operation was part of a “political strategy”. “We are a young and independent corporation which, thanks to hard work, is converting the municipality into an example of honesty and professionalism”, said Mérida, adding that the current local government complied with the law in all their actions.

“I ask you to look me straight in the eyes: I am innocent”, the mayor told TV cameras, reporters and the around 200 locals who were outside the Antequera courthouse when he was released on Monday. Silva’s words were greeted with applause.

The mayor’s lawyer, Fernando Huelin, stressed that he had been released with no bail and no obligation to report to the court. The lawyer explained that Silva’s case was the result of a “regrettable error” and that what is “under investigation has nothing to do with Ernesto”. According to Huelin “it appears that the only thing they have against him is that the professor made arrangements at the university so that Silva could sit an exam in a subject that normally required attendance in class, although this obligation could be waived with adequate justification. He added that Ernesto’s commitments as mayor prevented him from going to the classes in question. Huelin stressed that Silva has still not taken the exam and that he has not given preferential treatment to any planning cases involving the professor and the lawyer.

Ernesto Silva

“I’ve been held for 72 hours for wanting to take an exam”

J. Cano

The mayor of Villanueva de la Concepción told SUR on Tuesday, the day after his release, that the events of last_Friday had surprised him because “we have always collaborated with Seprona and given them the information they asked for. What’s more my conscience is clear, I know I have done nothing illegal.” Silva went on to repeat the explanation given by his lawyer, that the university professor had helped make arrangements for him to take an oral exam that normally requires attendance in classes and seminars. He added that it was the professor that offered to help him out, and that he had never asked for a municipal favour in return.

With regard to another exam, which Silva passed in June, being investigated by the Guardia Civil, Silva explained: “All my family and friends know that I studied hard to pass that exam.”

Recent history

Malaga’s 101st municipality

As for the alleged planning favour, Silva explained that in the case in question, the town hall had “not only stopped construction work but had rejected appeals and referred the case to the public prosecution department. The supposed favour was my accepting that they had submitted plans to the Town Hall”. He goes on to say that this was just an initial formality in a long process that would involve approval by the Junta de Andalucía and the Town Hall, where “we are not the majority”.

Ernesto Silva, who belongs to the political group Foro Andaluz, is mayor and president of the interim commission that has been running the town hall since Villanueva de la Concepción became a municipality in its own right just four months ago. Until then and since 1992 it had been an ELA (a ‘local autonomous entity’) belonging to Antequera. The long segregation process started when Juan Manuel Silva, Ernesto’s father, was mayor of the ELA. The village has 3,400 inhabitants.