He would be the cheapest corrupt Mayor in Spain, and a laughing stock in the ranking of the corrupt

Marbella ex Mayor, Julián Muñoz, was at the centre of the Malaya case proceedings in Málaga on Tuesday, when his defence team came out fighting.

‘He would be the cheapest corrupt Mayor in Spain, and a laughing stock in the ranking of the corrupt’, claimed his lawyer, Javier Saavedra, who insisted on his client’s innocence, and said the accusation that Muñoz had been paid 12,000 € by Juan Antonio Roca after preparing the motion of no confidence, which saw Muñoz dismissed as Mayor in August 2003, ‘offended common sense’.

Using irony he said that Roca and Muñoz were embezzlers, but who had ‘an enthusiastic honesty’ between them. He said no such payments could be proved as there were no bank movements, even though the police had searched for them ‘by land, sea and air’.

The lawyer said he believed in the innocence of ‘all and every one’ of those present, but of his client ‘in particular’.

Saavedra added to earlier calls for the case to be annulled, using the argument that some of the accused had spent 14 months in prison on remand when, according to the lawyer, there was no risk of flight or of the destruction of evidence. He went as far as to say that he was prepared to take the case to the European Court of Human Rights.

Muñoz denied to the court receiving any money from his ‘enemy’, Roca.

Muñoz faces charges of perversion of the course of administration, misuse of public funds and passive bribery, and is accused of receiving more than 150,000 € by Juan Antonio Roca in bribes.

One of the accused, José María Mellado, who is linked to the La Malvasía hotel in El Rocio, Huelva, missed Monday’s proceedings, but respected the magistrate’s demands that he appear on Tuesday. He arrived at 1.45pm, only to feel faint and be escorted from the chamber.

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