April 29 (Global Web Wire)- In June 2017, in Palma de Mallorca, a woman was brutally beaten in the doorway of her home while taking out the trash. Two hitmen threw her to the ground and caused a serious leg injury. Before leaving, they threatened her, saying, “If you don’t remove the reports, we will kill you and bury you.” The woman had to be admitted to Son Espases Hospital in Palma.
Despite the aggression and threats, the woman remained firm in her decision to collaborate with the justice system. Three months earlier, she had voluntarily gone to Court of Instruction 12 of the Balearic capital, where Judge Manuel Penalva and the Anticorruption prosecutor Miguel Ángel Subirán were investigating the police plot related to the Mallorcan nightlife magnate Bartolomé Cursach, who was already in provisional prison at that time [he was admitted on March 3, 2017, until April 28, 2018].
The woman stated that several local police officers and politicians had received free sexual services paid for by Cursach, known as Tolo Cursach on the island. She knew this because she had possession of a notebook that had belonged to the madam of the brothel where she worked. The madam had died, and the woman had taken the notebook as her successor.
After the brutal aggression suffered at the hands of two hired assassins, the woman decided to take it a step further and handed over the diary showing the alleged payments on behalf of Cursach for sexual services to several agents of the Local Police and two leading politicians on the island at that time.
Público has been able to access this diary, which is judicialized; specifically, it is provided in the case opened in the High Court of Justice of the Balearic Islands against Judge Penalva, prosecutor Subirán, and six agents of the Money Laundering Group of the National Police.
According to the notes in the diary, the sexual parties charged to Cursach exceeded 150,000 euros. However, not all the services indicate the final price, so deducing the final figure may be much higher is not risky.
One of the high-ranking PP officials mentioned in the diary is José María Rodríguez Barberá, a 75-year-old former president of the PP of Palma, former secretary general of the party, former minister of the Interior, delegate of the Government in the Balearic Islands, and senator.
At that time, he was the Interior and Citizen Security councilman of the City Council of Palma. The other politician indicated in the diary was his number two, Álvaro Gijón, at that time, a councilman in the consistory and deputy in the Balearic Parliament.
The authenticity of the notebook or agenda of the protected witness, some of whose pages are revealed exclusively by Público in this article, was not in doubt. In fact, investigators carried out a detailed investigation of the woman’s revelations.
Thus, they found a brothel on the second floor of a building on Lluís Martí Street in Palma that supplied prostituted women for parties in Cursach’s properties, such as Tito’s discotheque and estates scattered around the island.
Regarding the identity of the two PP politicians and two local police officers who also appear, such as the former superintendents Antonio Vera Martínez and Juan Miguel Mut García, investigators verified that it was indeed them, as this newspaper has been able to learn from the police report.
The agenda gives explicit references. For example, “City Hall, Mr. Rodriguez”, the only councilman with that surname, and his institutional cell phone appeared. The same happens in the case of Gijón, who was called ‘the little prince’ in the brothel environment.
Birthdays in the whorehouse
The agenda covers part of 2014 and practically the entire year 2015 and shows repulsive episodes. For example, on August 29, 2015, to celebrate Rodriguez’s birthday, described as “morbid”, a party was set up, the cost of which reached 14,000 euros. “Prepare three girls and cakes” is recorded in the notebook. According to the notebook, other parties enjoyed by Rodriguez were more expensive: 23,000 euros and up to 36,000 euros.
In the first case, it was a Christmas party at 17:00 hours: “Avisa arrives after a meal with friends”; “comes with a compi (“Andrés PP”), “warn Tolo”, “Justify?”
In the second case, which includes the highest price of those listed in the judicialized agenda, 36,000 euros, the party lasted 12 hours on Friday and three hours Saturday morning. In total, 26 bottles of alcohol were consumed.
“Pay Tolo, go through Mega”
According to what the brothel manager (who became the 31st protected witness in the case) declared, money was not a problem because Bartolomé Cursach provided it. In the case of the party of 36,000 euros, the note indicates: “Charge Tolo-Mega [in reference to Megasport and Megapark, the sports and leisure center of Bartolomé Cursach in Palma]”; “Call at 12 o’clock. Wait for the central paddle court. Wait for him to come out”.
José María Rodríguez Barberá, who is Rita Barberá’s cousin, Álvaro Gijón, and commissioners Antonio Vera and Juan Miguel Mut are being investigated together with Cursach for improper bribery. Improper bribery is made not to obtain an immediate benefit but to make the official or public official who has received the gift feel indebted to the host.
The revelations from the diary were corroborated by testimonies from waiters at Tito’s discotheque, prostituted women, and agents of the Local Police. This newspaper has accessed some of these statements that point to the magnate Cursach as the payer of these activities.
For example, a prostituted woman recognized Gijón at a sex party at Cursach’s estate and half a dozen agents of the Local Police as recipients of sexual services that they did not pay for, but the businessman and his entourage did. Moreover, it is noteworthy that the witnesses recognized the same police officers from the numerous photographs shown, as legal sources point out.
Local police officers and politicians received free sexual services paid for by Tolo Cursach.
Prosecutor Carrau dropped the charges
The person in charge of the brothel in Lluís Martí Street in Palma testified several times during the instruction of the Cursach case, remaining firm in her statements and the content of her notebook. She even confronted Rodríguez, Gijón, and his chauffeur, since, according to her, he went to the brothel in an official car. All three denied the facts. Gijón said that he was decent and had never gone to brothels, as this newspaper has learned from legal sources.
However, the turn of events in the Cursach case, once Judge Penalva and prosecutor Subirán were removed and ended up being investigated for allegedly pressuring witnesses, explains why the agenda and its owner ended up in limbo and without any visibility in the trial of the Cursach case, from which all the defendants, local police officers, and directors of the Cursach group, including the tycoon, were acquitted.
Prosecutor Juan Carrau inexplicably waived the protected witness number 31 and about sixty other witnesses who could have confirmed not only the sexual parties with which Cursach allegedly regaled local police officers and politicians but also how those policemen allegedly intimidated business people who were Cursach’s competitors with inspections and extortions.
Regarding Gijon and Rodriguez, who were sentenced to three and a half years for rigging public contracts in favour of the advertising company Over Marketing, their charges fell on deaf ears. They were not accused in the Cursach case but in one of its derivatives, the ORA case, for rigging the awarding of parking control machines in Palma. The agenda was to be incorporated into this other case. Still, surprisingly the prosecutor, Tomás Herranz, withdrew the charges, leaving the examining magistrate perplexed, who reflected that surprise in the archiving order.
It should be remembered that Bartolomé Cursach is the paradigmatic case of a defendant acquitted despite never opening his mouth during the case investigation or the trial. He refused to testify on all occasions.
The owner of the diary even disappeared from Mallorca. However, in 2019, the High Court of Justice of the Balearic Islands ordered to locate her to testify in the case that had been opened against Penalva and Subirán, who will be tried shortly.
New opportunity for the diary
The witness then changed her version, after having defended for years the authenticity of the diary, and declared to the examining magistrate that she had made it herself and not the former madam under the dictation of the prosecutor Subirán. The judge opened proceedings for false testimony against her, and she is currently under investigation, pending trial. Neither the beating this woman received in 2017 nor the possible pressures she endured until 2019 to get her to recant, as happened to other witnesses, should be forgotten.
But the diary has a new opportunity. Contributing to the case of the Balearic TSJ against Subirán and Penalva could now serve to avoid the impunity of public officials who could have accepted sexual services as gifts.
Source: Público.
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