“We must and do acquit Pedro Manuel San Ginés Gutiérrez.” The Supreme Court has exonerated the Canarian Coalition senator of the crimes of false accusation and denunciation and false testimony for which . The magistrates have concluded that there is insufficient evidence that the leader, when he was at the head of the Lanzarote Council, knowingly denounced the falsehood of the facts to harm his political rivals.
In a 19-page ruling, to which EL PAÍS has had access, the high court maintains that Sanginés “limited himself to informing the authorities of facts that had been transmitted to him that could constitute a crime.” “And not even personally but in his capacity as a director of the public entity in the concept in which it is reported,” he emphasizes. In this sense, the magistrates recall that the fact that a judicial investigation ends up being archived “does not allow the automatic opening of criminal proceedings against those who, in good faith, have maintained the accusation.”
In this case, Sanginés presented his complaint in November 2009, after taking office as president of the Lanzarote Council – and consequently of the Public Body of Local Business – Centers for Art, Culture and Tourism (EPEL-CACT) -. Specifically, he reported possible irregular hiring in said entity and pointed out the CEO and, later, a certain businessman as possible responsible. The public entity CACT of Lanzarote also filed a complaint six months later along the same lines. A court in Arrecife opened an investigation into the matter, but shelved it a decade later, in November 2019.
The Prosecutor’s Office and the family of the aforementioned businessman (who died while the judicial process was taking place) accused Sanginés of having filed a false complaint. They alleged that everything responded to political persecution of the leader against his predecessor. The now senator, however, insisted that he had limited himself to acting after becoming aware of possible irregularities in the entity. Sanginés defended that it was his legal obligation to alert the Civil Guard and the courts.
In this context, the Supreme Court justices explain that the crime of false reporting can only be attributed by way of fraud – when there is a deliberate will to commit a crime knowing its illegality. And only when “it is proven or reasonably inferred that the subject carried out his accusation or complaint with malice, that is, with knowledge of the falsehood or with manifest contempt for the truth.” In this case, they have studied whether Sanginés went to the Civil Guard and the court knowing that there were no irregularities in the Canarian public entity and with the intention of harming his political rivals.
After examining the evidence, the court highlights that the public entity itself filed a complaint narrating the alleged contracting irregularities that Sanginés pointed out. And it concludes that the leader’s action did not constitute an “objective falsehood” nor did he have a “deliberate intention to be untruthful”, because he “limited himself” to notifying Justice in his capacity as advisor to the public entity. The Supreme Court also emphasizes that said entity filed another complaint in 2010 under the same terms and that there is no evidence that Sanginés participated in it.
Thus, the magistrates assure that, since it has not been proven that he committed a crime of false reporting, a crime of false testimony cannot be attributed to him either. Although the court maintains that it understands “the understandable discomfort” suffered by the accused businessman, it emphasizes that this should not mean that Sanginés will be convicted for bringing to justice facts that he suspected could be criminal.
