The Investigative Court No. 5 of Estepona has ordered that the parties involved in the case may, within the next six months, request a new evidentiary procedure in the court file investigating alleged irregularities in the recruitment of a municipal official in the Estepona City Council. As Europa Press reports, this extension extends the investigation period and allows both the public prosecutor’s office and private prosecutors, including representatives of the Spanish Socialist Workers’ Party (PSOE), to collect additional evidence or present new witness statements in order to clarify the facts surrounding Mayor José María García Urbano and the municipal employee mentioned in the case.
The court case is investigating alleged offenses of misappropriation of public funds arising from the city council’s alleged irregular hiring of an employee. This is an act in which Mayor García Urbano is apparently being investigated as a representative of the city council and the official is being investigated as a possible necessary cooperation partner. According to information published by Europa Press, the court order indicates that there is a close relationship between the mayor and the employee, an aspect that was considered relevant in this case. Neither the councilor nor the official have been removed from office during the ongoing investigation, which remains under the supervision of the Civil and Investigation Department of the Estepona Instance Court.
Europa Press explained that following the decision to extend the investigation period by six months, the defendants were forced to consider whether they should request the opening of a hearing and to present their preliminary conclusions in writing. The case remains open to the inclusion of new evidence and statements, provided that they are asserted by the parties or determined ex officio by the court itself within the grace period.
At the political level, the decision to expand the investigation has increased pressure on the People’s Party (PP), the party to which the mayor under investigation belongs. According to Europa Press, the PSOE has called for both the expulsion of García Urbano from the PP and his immediate resignation as mayor. Josele Aguilar, general secretary of the PSOE in Malaga, and Emma Molina, local socialist leader, publicly called for a strong stance from the PP regarding the situation and addressed their request to the organization’s regional and national leaders.
In his statements collected by Europa Press, Aguilar called on leaders such as Juanma Moreno Bonilla, Patricia Navarro and Carolina España to act with the same responsibility and example that he said they demanded of other political parties. “They must assume within their own ranks the responsibility and example that they demand of others,” Europa Press quoted Aguilar as saying. The socialist leader believed that a passive response from the PP to the court file would mean taking on some of the city council’s alleged behavior.
Emma Molina, Socialist general secretary in Estepona, also made public statements collected by Europa Press calling on Juanma Moreno Bonilla and Alberto Núñez Feijóo, regional and national presidents of the PP, respectively, to advocate for the dismissal and resignation of García Urbano. Molina said: “We demand that the PP avoid the shame of seeing the mayor of our municipality sitting on the bench for embezzlement of public funds.”
While the investigation progresses and all procedural options remain open, Europa Press reported that the conservative party has not made any official statements following the recent court decision. The case keeps the debate on the internal handling of possible cases of corruption within the People’s Party in suspense, an issue that, according to Europa Press, remains without an institutional response after the agreed extension.
The investigation focuses mainly on the management of municipal resources and the possible inappropriate use of these resources, which has maintained public interest in the city of Malaga and at the provincial level. The ultimate progress towards a hearing in the Regional Court will depend both on the new evidence or witness statements presented during this period and on the legal assessments of the prosecution and the remaining interested parties, as detailed by Europa Press. Currently, the situation of the mayor and the aforementioned official remains in both legal and political focus.
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