Malaya corruption trial verdicts due

IT is the biggest trial ever seen in Andalucia.

But how many of the 94 people tried in the huge Malaya corruption trial will actually be sent to jail?

This is the question as Judge Jose Godino prepares to give his final verdicts this week in the case that centres around the laundering of €2.4 billion via Marbella Town Hall.

It has taken the judge – and others before him – almost a decade to get to this stage.

After five years of investigation and 200,000 pages of charges, the trial began in 2010.

This Friday will see its culmination and the possibility of seeing two ex mayors of the town sent to prison.

Those on trial include former mayors Julian Munoz, Marisol Yague, former chief of Marbella police Rafael del Pozo and town hall planning supremo Juan Antonio Roca.

The crackdown saw almost two thirds of Marbella’s councillors pulled in, as well as a series of well-known construction and real estate bosses.

The scale of the corruption proved so pervasive that control of Marbella Town Hall had to be temporarily handed over to a caretaker administration appointed by the Junta until local elections could take place in 2007.

So big was the case that a completely new court had to be built to house the hearing.

Three years and nearly 200 court sessions later, the trial is finally coming to a climax.

Judge Jose Godino who has spent the last year deliberating over the verdict, will finally read out the sentences to those accused on October 4.

Of the 94 originally accused, only nine charges were dropped and two are already in prison – ringleader Juan Antonio Roca and former mayor Munoz.