Juan Antonio Serra Ferrer, managing director of the Balearic government's Ibetec public entity for telecommunications and innovation, has been dismissed with immediate effect because he faces prosecution for sexual assault.
The Prosecutor's Office is calling for a three-year prison sentence for an incident that occurred in May 2022. He is accused of having kissed and licked the face of a woman who didn't know him at a restaurant on the Paseo Mallorca in Palma. He then attacked an officer from the National Police when being arrested; he punched the officer on the jaw.
Serra Ferrer, 48, was at that time a tutor in the economics faculty at the University of the Balearic Islands. The university parted company with him when it learned of the incident in the restaurant.
Despite there having been a judicial procedure against him for sexual assault, he was appointed Ibetec managing director on a salary of 57,000 euros a year at the start of August. Ibetec comes under the ministry for economic affairs and finance.
It was Antoni Costa, the minister and also government vice-president, who announced the dismissal of Serra Ferrer on Saturday. This was because the government had become aware of the accusations made against him and the trial. A statement from the minister read: "On the International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women, the regional government highlights its commitment to putting all resources and measures into the protection of women and the fight against this social scourge."