Spain’s biggest-ever corruption trial opens

MALAGA - Spain’s biggest ever corruption trial began Monday, with 95 people accused of involvement in massive bribery in the southern tourist resort of Marbella.

The defendants include two former mayors, an ex-deputy mayor, former city officials, entrepreneurs and lawyers.

The city council routinely issued illegal building permits in exchange for kickbacks, the prosecution will argue.

Police cordoned off the court building while some 300 journalists and about 100 lawyers were arriving to attend the trial in Malaga.

Rocio Amigo, lawyer for former Marbella urban planning advisor Juan Antonio Roca, requested the suspension of the trial, but the court rejected the request.

Roca, the alleged mastermind behind the corruption network, is charged with accumulating a fortune worth about 245 million euros ($330 million) while working for the Marbella city council from 1992 to 2003.

Corrupt officials working with Roca allegedly allowed entrepreneurs to build on protected land, to erect buildings which did not meet the required standards, to buy municipal land for miniscule prices and to obtain contracts without appropriate bidding proceedings.

Roca is the only one among the 95 defendants attending the trial who is currently in prison. Three other accused are on the run.

Lower-level suspects who are being investigated separately include Isabel Pantoja, one of Spain’s most popular singers. She is suspected of laundering money on behalf of Julian Munoz, one of the main accused, with whom she started an affair while he was Marbella mayor.

Police uncovered the corruption ring in what is known as the Operation Malaya in March and April 2006. That prompted the Spanish government to dissolve the Marbella city council and to appoint a caretaker authority to run the city until the 2007 local elections.

The main defendants in the Marbella corruption case face prison sentences of 10 to 30 years. All of the accused face jail terms amounting to a total of up to 500 years and fines totaling about four billion euros.

The trial was expected to last at least a year.