The judge of the National Court José Luis Calama has agreed to the provisional release with precautionary measures for the retired General of the Civil Guard Francisco Espinosa Navas, the only preventive prisoner in the Mediator case. The magistrate considers that the risk of flight is very low and that there is no longer any risk of hindering the investigation that justified his provisional detention.
The investigating magistrate has adopted the decision against the criteria of the European Prosecutor's Office, which had opposed the request of the general's defense to release him. From now on, the retired general must appear in court every 15 days and will be prohibited from leaving Spain.
The judge justifies the release in that the risk of him fleeing from Justice "is very low", since his "personal and economic" roots in Spain are strong and "there is no element or indication that alerts about his possible flight abroad ". He adds that the very prosecutor who originally requested his provisional detention showed little concern about the possibility of escape.
Regarding the risk of alteration or destruction of sources of evidence, in which the Prosecutor's Office has justified its position, Calama indicates that the general has been in prison since February 16, "sufficient time for the investigators to have been able to properly secure those aforementioned sources test". This coincides with what was stated by the general's lawyer in his request for freedom presented on April 23.
Judge Calama's order maintains that there are very "very solid" indications of a crime on the part of the general, accused of bribery, influence peddling and belonging to a criminal group.
His prison was agreed by the Tenerife judge who is investigating the corruption case linked to the former socialist deputy Bernardo Fuentes, Tito Berni. Although the measure was adopted so that the defendant did not interfere in the early stages of the investigation, it ended up being prolonged by the transfer to the European Public Prosecutor's Office of the investigation referring to the general.
Espinosa is accused of possible irregularities in the awarding of various contracts for the GAR-SI Sahel project, with which the European Union seeks to strengthen security in that area of Africa. The division general led the project from its start-up in 2017 until it went to the reserve due to age, in 2021.
The European Public Prosecutor's Office accepted the judge's proposal to assume what referred to the contracts of the Sahel project since it implied the misuse of European funds. The EU has allocated 41.6 million to the operation, although the amounts questioned are much lower.
The businessman that the general could have benefited, José Suárez Estévez, known as the Drones for the products he offered, won four awards within four large contracts. The total amount of the contracts was 2.4 million, although the lots that specifically corresponded to the investigated businessman totaled 137,000 euros.
The summary includes other disparate awards to the businessman, unrelated to the European project, for just over 160,000 euros.
Now it is the European Public Prosecutor's Office, and not a judge, who is in charge of the investigation that affects European funds. The work of the magistrate of the National Court is that of a judge of guarantees, in charge of deciding on the resources and restrictive measures of rights such as provisional detention.
Apart from the contracts on EU funds, the bulk of the investigation remains in the Investigating Court number 4 of Tenerife.
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