I was a kind of figurehead for someone who had problems with the Treasury and could not appear, I did not dedicate myself to this, ” Javier Palos Yago answered questions from the Prosecutor’s Office about his role in attracting a construction company to build three supermarkets in Soria and Calahorra and the collection of 150,000 euros as an advance payment for future construction.
The Public Ministry was interested in knowing who that person was and Javier Palos replied: “It is Mariano Casasnovas (the businessman who wanted to buy Real Zaragoza). I was listed as the sole administrator but he was the one who managed everything and looked for clients,” he declared.
Javier Palos Yago should have been tried in November but he did not appear and the Court put him in search and capture. This Friday he finally sat down on the defendants’ bench to be tried as alleged author of a scam against the construction company Keril Europea SL and faces a sentence of between four and six years in prison. His lawyer, Carmen Sánchez, ask for absolution.
The accused acknowledged being the sole administrator of Soria SL, the company through which the operation was carried out. However, he clarified that he was only an extra: “I have not managed even five cents”. He explained that the company was established to manage land and, specifically, some plots in which the Lidl and Semark supermarkets had been interested.
Soria Soria’s mission was to obtain these lands, develop them and then offer them to a construction company which would be “invited” to the tender and subsequent award of the works. For this intermediation, Keril Europea delivered to Soria Soria 150,000 euros that, according to the contract signed in February 2019, “would be returned if the works were not carried out” or they would be deducted from the stipulated commission to be paid: 5% of the total value of the awarded works.
After a year and as there was no sign of starting construction due to license problems with the municipalities, as explained by the defendant, Keril Europea requested the return of 150,000 euros. Then it was Mariano Casasnovas who gave him a promissory note, commissioned by Palos Yago, according to what he said. The promissory note had no funds and José Luis MM, Keril’s representative, sued Javier Palos.
If the accused lawyer insisted throughout the trial that he was nothing more than an employee of Casasnovas who gave him work when he closed his office due to the crisis, he declared that his job was to capture land for Soria Soria as “pure and simple intermediary” and “without companies.” “The accounts were handled by Juan OB (manager) and Javier Palos. I can’t access the company’s accounts,” he said. Mariano Casanovas. who in this case testified as a witness, admitted that the negotiation with Lidl and Smark was carried out by him, “as other times”.
The legal representatives of both supermarkets, Raúl Zorita, from Lidl (with whom Casasnovas is friendly) and José Antonio Vega, president of Smark AC Group (Lupa chain) explained that they terminated the contracts with Soria Land when the set time had elapsed and it had not been urbanized. , Both companies executed their respective guarantees and lost nothing.
Javier Palos and Mariano Casasnovas have a pending trial for a similar operation, in which there are also loans involved, the construction company Riovalle Construcción y Obra Publica and the company Hersander SL have been denounced, in which they are accused of an alleged scam of 350,000 euros.
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