The PSOE of Linares (Jaén, 55,261 inhabitants) will support the partial pardon for Juan Fernández, who was mayor of the city from 1999 to 2018, for a crime of embezzlement of public funds by collecting bonuses, worth 125,377 euros, from the accounts of the socialist municipal group. The petition, which will be put to a vote in the local assembly on the 26th, is justified by “popular sentiment” so that Fernández does not go to prison. The Jaén Court ruled on the former Linares councilor in December, leaving a deadline for the execution of the sentence to be August 30.
The current socialist leadership of Linares was not the one that once denounced Fernández, who was also expelled from the party in 2018. Now, sources from the local Executive specify that they support the partial pardon to avoid the imprisonment of the former mayor, although they do maintain the request for seven years of absolute disqualification after it has been proven that the former councilor has already returned the money that he would have collected illegally.
According to the document that the PSOE of Linares will submit to the vote of the militancy, the reasons that explain this support for the partial pardon are, on the one hand, that the court that tried him has already conditioned that pardon to the return of the financial amount for which he was convicted.
And, very especially, the “popular sentiment” of Linares society has weighed on the decision of the socialists of Linares, accredited with thousands of signatures collected by the Federation of Neighborhood Associations “that express a clear and determined popular will.” The support of the plenary session of the Linares City Council, held on July 30 with the sole presence of the councilors of the PP government team and the absence of the councilors of the PSOE, Vox and Izquierda Unida, was also significant.
“From objectivity, based on the facts and reasons presented here, reasoned by the will of citizens and institutions, and beyond any other partisan or partisan consideration, we reiterate the decision to support with this agreement the granting of partial pardon for Juan Fernández,” is stated in the writing to which this newspaper has had access.
In June last year, the Criminal Chamber of the Supreme Court dismissed the appeal filed by the former mayor against the ruling of the Superior Court of Justice of Andalusia that reduced the sentences imposed on him by a Jury Court of the Provincial Court of Jaén from four to three years in prison and from 10 to 7 years of absolute disqualification.
According to the proven facts, during the time that she served as spokesperson for the socialist municipal group (from 2011 to 2017) Fernández appropriated for her own benefit, without being legally authorized and without the knowledge or consent of her group, a monthly amount of 1,700 euros in cash, by issuing bank checks to the bearer charged to two accounts belonging to said group opened in a bank and that were fed exclusively by the financial endowment received from the City Council.
Fernández did not deny having received these amounts and declared this before the jury, but he rejected that he did 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 from the beginning has been maintaining that there was an agreement to pay him that amount monthly.
The Supreme Court rejected the argument of the former mayor who maintained in his appeal that he did not know the public nature of the funds. “Allocating the funds of the municipal group to a bonus for the person who holds, with exclusive dedication, the position of mayor, is an illicit diversion of such funds,” indicated the order of the high court.
Fernández received relief from Jaén to suspend the execution of the sentence until August. “It is a pardon that I am not asking for alone, but rather the people are asking for it, as happened with Fuenteovejuna,” said the former first mayor.
“Entry into prison would be something terrible because I have not committed any crime,” added the former mayor of Linares. In his opinion, “everything was due to a political conspiracy” that he attributes to his confrontation with the then socialist regional leader Susana Díaz, whom he accused of lack of support from the Andalusian Government for the reindustrialization of Linares after the closure of the Santana Motor automobile factory. “I confronted her and she asked for my expulsion from both Ábalos and [José Luis] like Cerdán [Santos]What an irony,” said Fernández.
