The Story of the Discrete Judge Who Decided To Stay in Marbella
larger | smaller
By h.b. - Apr 3, 2006 - 12:24 AM
Judge Miguel Ángel Torres is the judge behind the current arrests in Marbella Town Hall

EDITORIAL - One wonders whether Instruction Judge Number Five in Marbella, Miguel Ángel Torres Segura, knew what he was getting involved in when he started looking into the Operación Malaya corruption case in the town last October.

All over the weekend the Judge has been taking the declarations of those accused in the case, following the 23 arrests so far, and working well into the early hours, much to the dismay of the newspaper writers whose papers have regularly gone to bed well before the judge has.

Judge Torres is a shy man who celebrates his 35th birthday on Thursday, and who has dedicated his short time in the legal profession into fight against corruption and money laundering.
He’s currently regularly eating in the courtroom to avoid the gathering press outside. Despite the case achieving such notoriety, photos of the judge are hard to find, and he has, up to now, walked the streets generally unrecognised.

Only last week he was in Granada to give a lecture at the city’s university where 400 budding lawyers heard him speak on ‘The Crime of Money Laundering, and its Persecution in the Judicial Environment’.

Then he was only famous for being the judge behind the ‘Operación Ballena Blanca’ – the White Whale of corruption which rocked Marbella with 41 arrests in April last year, including three notaries and seven lawyers, and which still has to come to court.
Now his fame is much greater. The current ‘Operación Malaya’ is estimated by some to involve sums as much as three times greater than in Operación Ballena Blanca.
His first move against the Gil y Gil empire in Marbella, and its inheritors was back in 1998 when he was the first magistrate to stop the building at a site approved by the Gil administration. The ‘Belmonsa’, and ‘Caballos’ cases were all the work of Miguel Angel Torres, the second leading Gil to spend time in jail.

Police sources say that despite his youth, Miguel Ángel Torres acts with caution, and they find has arguments are always well founded. One police man is quoted as describing Torres as someone who ‘climbs up the stairs holding on to the baninster’.

His resolutions are also well founded, drawn up in a clear, easily understood language that surprises many after the hours and hours of interviewing.

In his statement made after questioning the man at the centre of the latest scandal, Juan Antonio Roca Nicolás, for more than four hours, Judge Torres, described him as the man pulling the strings of the Mayor, whom he has said is a mere puppet.

Last September, Judge Torres was offered promotion to Criminal Court number five in his native Granada, but he said he would prefer to stay in Marbella to complete Operación Ballena.

There are many from Marbella town hall now languishing in the provincial prison in Alhaúrin el Grande, who wish the young judge would have gone on his way. The Mayor and her deputy sharing a cell in the women’s module to name but two.

Related Articles
The Man behind the Money in Marbella

The imprisonment of the Deputy Mayor of Marbella takes the number refused bail to five

Marbella Corruption: The Murcia Connection

Click here for related stories

 mobile |  email this article |  printer friendly page

 del.icio.us |  digg |  technorati |  yahoo | Stumble It!
Facebook | Reddit | Newsvine | Meneame | Wikio
Blink | Google | Fresqui | MSN reporters | Live Spaces
My Space | Fark | Mixx | Twitter

Editorial/Opinion

Readers' comments:
Please keep to the subject. Opinions published here are of our visitors, not the Typically Spanish team. Comments which go against Spanish laws or which are libellous are not allowed. We reserve the right to delete any comment we wish. Placing a comment indicates you have read our terms and conditions and privacy policy .

Por favor, céntrate en el tema. Son las opiniones de los internautas, y no las de Typically Spanish. No está permitido verter comentarios contrarios a las leyes españolas o injuriantes. Reservado el derecho a eliminar los comentarios que consideremos fuera de tema. Escribir un comentario indica que has leído nuestros condiciones de uso y politica de privacidad .