Marbella corruption cases causing timing headache in the courts

Marbella corruption cases causing timing headache in the courts
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By h.b. - Feb 9, 2010 - 8:28 PM
The 'Malaya' and 'Ballena Blanca' cases are considered too big to overlap

Juan Antonio Roca, the man at the centre of the Malaya case - EFE

The date for the start of the court cases for the ‘Malaya’ corruption scandal and the ‘Ballena Blanca’ money laundering affair could coincide and that it causing differences between the Málaga Provincial Court and the Anti Corruption Prosecutor’s Office.

Final start dates for both cases are still to be set, but they could coincide according to the President of the Provincial Court, Francisco Javier Arroyo. That would cause serious problems for the prosecutor, Juan Carlos López Caballero, who has instructed both cases, and the Chief Prosecutor, Antonio Morales, has concluded that ‘in common sense both cases cannot coincide’.

Ballena Blanca was set to start at the end of March, while Malaya could start at the end of May, but with the first expected to last six months and the second a year an overlap is likely. Ballena Blanca has to deal with 19 accused and some 80,000 sheets of evidence, while Malaya has 103 accused and the court summary is 90,000 sheets long.

Antonio Morales considers that the Malaya case should wait until after Ballena Blanca has been completed and has told Diario Sur that he does not understand the hurry.

To add to the problems there is a third case, ‘Minutas’ which already has a fixed date of April 6 to June 4 where here the prosecutor, Francisco Jiménez Villarejo, also belongs to the same anti-corruption department.

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