Corrupt former judge Salvador Alba tries to stop his entry into prison ‘in extremis’ with new allegations

In a letter registered this Friday to which Efe has had access, the lawyer Nicolás González-Cuéllar alleges a series of possible irregularities in the processing of previous appeals from his client, Salvador Alba, which he considers should suspend his imprisonment.

Alba has yet to serve the sentence of six and a half years in prison imposed by the Superior Court of Justice of the Canary Islands (TSJC) for having manipulated a criminal investigation to harm Judge Victoria Rosell, when she was a deputy of Podemos in Congress , a ruling that has been firm since last November.

The former magistrate of the Las Palmas Court challenged several of the members of the Criminal Chamber who were supposed to enforce that ruling and alleged a series of health problems whose treatment or follow-up he argued was incompatible with going to prison.

Yesterday, at 5:35 p.m., the Police notified him personally – as his lawyer acknowledges in the allegations this Friday – that his appeals have been dismissed and that he was given a period of “one day” to enter a center voluntarily. prison, or the forces of order would be instructed to take him prisoner.

This Friday, Alba has argued through her lawyer that there was a magistrate whom she had also challenged, Gloria Poyatos, in the room that had to decide on another of her challenges, that of the president of the TSJC, Juan Luis Lorenzo Bragado, and that she intervened in that matter before he was formally notified that his arguments to remove her from such file were not accepted.

For the defense, an annulment of actions was incurred that should make the TSJC annul his order of admission to prison.

Salvador Alba’s lawyer also maintains that his secondary petition has not been answered: because he not only asked to be exonerated from going to prison for health reasons (argument that the forensic doctors’ reports have dismantled), but also he proposed that his incarceration be at least deferred until he was cured.

And finally, he says that his request for suspension of the execution of the sentence has not been answered while the pardon that he has requested from the Government is processed.

The Prosecutor’s Office has already warned of the “obvious dilatory spirit” of this maneuver by the former judge, who since February has deployed a multitude of resources to try to avoid or delay serving his sentence.

Six and a half years of the Alba case

The Alba case began in May 2016, after the businessman Miguel Ángel Ramírez, president of the Las Palmas Sports Union, provided in court a recording that he made in the office of the then judge in the Sixth Section of the Provincial Court of the palms. In the audio of that clandestine meeting organized by the magistrate himself (according to the proven facts of the sentence) he is heard conspiring against Victoria Rosell.

In that appointment, Alba asked the businessman, whom he was investigating for alleged tax fraud, to provide evidence that could damage Rosell’s reputation and, in exchange, promised to file the case against him. “You accredit it, we do it that way, we take it to the procedure and then, we start the machinery,” he told his interlocutor. “And what about the prosecutor?” asked Ramírez. “The prosecutor will have to fuck,” replied the now condemned.

In the complete recording of that conversation, which appeared in the trash can of the device used by the businessman to record it, the name of José Manuel Soria appears:

Ramirez:Do you think that this is going well for José Manuel for the lawsuit he has?

Sunrise: Let’s see, the lawsuit that he has, I think it prospers yes or yes, as it is, but of course this…

Ramirez: Yes, that’s it, admit it for processing.

Sunrise: Yes, of course, but this, already…

Alba continued to practice until July 2018. He even presided over trials such as the Faycán case of corruption in the Gran Canaria municipality of Telde, which resulted in a conviction of the Popular Party (PP) as subsidiary civil liability despite the fact that the former judge, already Suspended from functions, he tried to avoid it through a particular vote in which he advocated absolving this formation. The order to open the oral trial removed Alba from the judiciary as a precautionary measure. The trial was held in July 2019 and two months later, the TSJC issued the sentence that sentenced him to six and a half years in prison and 18 years of disqualification, in addition to imposing a fine of 12,150 euros and the payment of compensation of 60,000 euros. to the victim of his crimes, Victoria Rosell, for the moral damages caused.