The former socialist mayor of Linares (Jaén, 55,261 inhabitants) from 1999 to 2018, Juan Fernández, received as “relief” the decision of the Provincial Court of Jaén to suspend his entry into prison to serve the sentence of three years in prison and seven years of absolute ban for the crime of embezzlement of public funds by collecting bonuses worth 125,377 euros, coming from the socialist’s accounts. municipal group.
“I feel relieved because it gives me the opportunity to demonstrate that there is no guilt and I can obtain the long-awaited pardon from the Council of Ministers,” said the former mayor of Linares. Fernández, who in 2018 was expelled from the PSOE and, in the subsequent term, returned to the Linares Corporation as advisor to the independent Linares Primero party, hopes that the pardon will arrive before August 30, 2026, the date that the Jaén Court set as the limit for the suspension of the execution of the sentence.
“It is a grace that I do not ask alone, but rather that the people ask for it, as happened with Fuenteovejuna,” added the former Linares councilor in reference to the support that his petition received from the Federation of Neighborhood Associations of Himilce as well as thousands of signatures in support of Fernández. Precisely, at the request of this neighborhood federation, in July of this year it received the support of the plenary session of the Linares City Hall, although, surprisingly, it only did so with the votes of the PP, since neither the PSOE, nor the IU and Vox attended the session.
“Going into prison would be something terrible because I haven’t committed any crime,” Fernández added. According to him, “it was all due to a political conspiracy” which he attributes to his confrontation with the socialist regional leader at the time, Susana Díaz, whom he accused of lack of support from the Andalusian government for the reindustrialization of Linares. “I confronted her and she asked for my expulsion from Ábalos (José Luis) and Cerdán (Santos), what an irony,” says Fernández.
In June this year, the Criminal Chamber of the Supreme Court rejected the appeal filed by the former mayor against the decision of the Superior Court of Justice of Andalusia which reduced from four to three years in prison and from 10 to seven years of absolute imprisonment the sentences imposed on him by a jury court of the Provincial Court of Jaén.
According to the proven facts, during the period when he was spokesperson for the socialist municipal group (from 2011 to 2017), Fernández appropriated, without legal authorization and without the knowledge or consent of his group, a monthly sum of 1,700 euros in cash, by issuing bearer bank checks, debited from two accounts belonging to said group opened in a bank and funded exclusively by the financial allocation received from the City Hall.
Fernández did not deny having received these sums and declared it before the jury, but he denied having done so without the consent of the PSOE. “They decided it and they proposed it. They signed it and paid me,” said the former socialist councilor, who has maintained from the beginning that there was an agreement to pay him this sum monthly. However, the various witnesses denied having any knowledge of this salary that Fernández awarded himself in addition to the one he already received for his status as first mayor. Indeed, Manuel Rodríguez Méndez, socialist mayor between 1991 and 1995, declared that he had never been paid as spokesperson and that there had never been an agreement to charge for the exercise of this function.
The Supreme Court rejected the argument of the former mayor who claimed in his appeal that he did not know the public nature of the funds. “The allocation of municipal group funds to a bonus for the person who occupies, with exclusive dedication, the position of mayor, constitutes an illicit misappropriation of these funds,” indicates the order of the high court.
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