The First Section of the Court of Seville has set May 24, 2028, as the start date for a trial concerning €2.5 million in aid granted to the Cordoban company Matadero de Fuente Obejuna approximately twenty-five years ago. The oral hearing, initially planned for May of this year, had to be postponed in late April as one of the defendants could not be found.
According to a ruling dated April 27, the Court agreed to the suspension after the lawyer for Inocencio E.P. withdrew representation, citing an inability to contact his client. The court acknowledged it had been "impossible to establish contact" with the defendant, a former employee included in the ERE despite his employment with the company having ended years prior, to ensure effective defense.
A writ was issued to the Dean Court of Peñarroya-Pueblonuevo to personally require Inocencio E.P. to appoint new counsel or contact his current one. Failure to comply risked an arrest warrant to guarantee his presence. The new trial date, comprising eighteen sessions and concluding on June 26, 2028, was communicated in an order dated June 18.
The Court has set all sessions to begin at ten in the morning and reserves the right to adjust the schedule. It has also given the involved parties five days to indicate whether the defendants wish to testify at the beginning or end of the hearing, to facilitate session organization.
An important warning has been issued: parties will only have three days to request a further postponement, exclusively if they have another trial scheduled for the same dates. After this period, no further suspension requests will be accepted.
The slowness of Justice is a statement that sometimes falls short. The ERE macro-case of the Junta de Andalucía is a good collection of examples.
In this case, as per the opening of oral trial order from the Investigating Court number 6 of Seville, several defendants are named, including former UGT unionist Juan Lanzas, investigated as a supposed "facilitator" of aid, and Antonio Albarracín, former executive of the consultancy firm Vitalia. Also facing the court are the president of the Matadero de Fuente Obejuna former employees association, his wife, a supposed "friend" of Lanzas and owner of the company Técnicas Agrícolas Ecológicas Integrales, along with his daughter and partner, who allegedly received public funds despite not being employees.
Judge José Ignacio Vilaplana established that the case revolved around €2,528,258 corresponding to the premium of the collective income policy for the company's former employees, granted knowingly illegally from budget item 31L of regional funds.
