New legal setback for the interests of socialist Rafael Pineda. The investigating judge number 10 of Seville the appeal presented by his lawyer to expel Emvisesa from the case was rejected who investigates and in which the existence of … an alleged offense of influence peddling and commercial corruption, directly linked to the allocation of land of more than 10,000 square meters in Higuerón. A land that was awarded by tender to the wife of the former senior PSOE official, Olga Pérez Jiménez, during the stage where Espadas was responsible for the town hall of Seville and which, later, was sold to a recently created company (Higuerón Real Estate) so that it in turn sublet it to two fast-food restaurants and a gas station.
These lands belonged to the municipal housing company of the Seville City Council, which was responsible for launching the call for tenders for its public concession in the summer of 2016 and that it was also he who made the decision to award it to Pineda’s wife, who was the only one to have submitted an offer to lease this land. An involvement on the part of Emvisesa, which disposed of the land in September 2024, which led the legal department of the Consistory to take the decision to appear in the case which the Court of Instruction number 10 of Seville was investigating. Among other aspects, as his lawyer pointed out, as a result of “the patrimonial, institutional and reputational damage” that he suffered with this affair. But the lawyer who defends the interests of the socialist tried to ensure that this was not the case.
It was on October 27 that Emvisesa decided to appear as a private accusation in the case as an injured party. Rafael Pineda himself had already done so, whose lawyer did not appreciate the presence of the municipal housing company in this matter, and therefore decided to officially request its exclusion from the proceedings. However, and after this appeal was analyzed in depth by the judge, she indicated in the written declaration that she was not prepared to grant the request, thus giving truth to the arguments put forward at the time by the lawyer who is responsible for managing the interests of Emvisesa. A decision which has already been notified to all parties, highlighting the arguments which motivated it.
At the time, the municipal company’s lawyer indicated that it “suffered damages as a result of the events under investigation.” More specifically, the letter stated that “One of the people involved in the plot is the person responsible for the tertiary lands of Emvisesa, nothing more, nothing less” and this, apparently, “contributed in some way to the commission of the types of crimes under investigation.” In this sense, and in response to the arguments presented by Pineda’s lawyer, he insisted that “not admitting the appearance of Emvisesa as a private accusation would mean a violation of their fundamental right to effective judicial protection“, because the company “has a particular interest in ensuring that crimes such as corruption, prevarication or influence peddling are not committed within it, particularly in the case of an entity whose aim is to guarantee the constitutional right to decent housing”.
Among the aspects that the judge took into account in making his decision was the argument that, contrary to what Pineda’s lawyer claims, The Higuerón land belonged to Emvisesa and was not a heritage or public asset of the City Hall.was not the manager of the said land, but the owner. The appellant himself acknowledges that it was the municipal company which set the sale price, which “proves” that it is the owner of the property concerned and “the one which is directly harmed by any irregularity in the allocation”. Finally, the lawyer reiterates that “if the facts investigated prove irregularities in the trial procedure, this They could have concluded a sale below the market price or on terms detrimental to Emvisesa.the direct financial damage is obvious and indisputable. Aspects that the judge took into account and which made it possible to reject the appeal presented by the legal representatives of the socialist.
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