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160 years now demanded for judge and prosecutor in BCM owner case

335 years in all for six being accused

Judge Manuel Penalva (centre) and anti-corruption prosecutor Miguel Ángel Subirán (right). | Pere Bota

| Palma |

Judge Manuel Penalva and anti-corruption prosecutor Miguel Ángel Subirán led the initial investigations into BCM owner Tolo Cursach. Both were removed. Their handling of investigations was exposed in court, and this led to the collapse of the Cursach trial and acquittals on all charges for the defendants.

Lawyers have called for sentences of over thirty years for Penalva and Subirán, while they also want sentences of similar lengths for four former members of the National Police's money laundering unit. Different lawyers are now demanding sentences totalling 335 years for these same six people; 166 for Penalva and Subirán.

These are lawyers for a businessman, Antonio Roig, and a former head of the mobility department at Palma town hall, Miquel Femenía. In October 2016, they were ordered to prison in connection with the 'caso ORA'. Roig was suspected of having paid bribes in order to win the contract to manage the ORA parking zones in Palma, while Femenía was accused of having rigged the contract. Penalva and Subirán headed this case as well, and it came to form part of the wider 'caso Cursach'. In January 2021, a different investigating judge, Antoni Garcías, archived the case because of insufficient proof.

The demands being made by their lawyers have been sent to the Balearic High Court. These are for illegal detention, judicial 'prevaricación' (making decisions knowing them to have been unlawful), torture, threats, disclosure of secrets, obstruction of justice and omission of duty to prosecute crimes.

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