The case of Maracena (Granada, 22,000 inhabitants), kidnapping of the mayor On February 21, Vanessa Romero, the mayor’s partner at the time, is being held undercover in the makeshift prison and continues to see many people. blind spots. the mayor’s story Bertha Linares (PSOE), leaving some contradictions and shadows about what happened, while the Civil Guard investigates what is behind it. These are some of the unresolved questions.
Who did the kidnapper call?
According to the story that emerged about the express kidnapping and was largely confirmed by the victim’s husband, councilor Vanessa Romero went to the school where she took her children, to a special center in Atarfe (Granada). There she met the mayor couple Pedro Gómez. This didn’t surprise her, as they both took their kids to the same school. She asked for help because she ran out of gas. He loaded it into his vehicle, and the kidnapper pointed a gun at him and drove him into a nearby swamp. Apparently the gun was fake. There he tied her hands and feet and gagged her, then threatened with an iron bar to put her in the trunk of the car. Undersecretary’s husband guarantees pirate made two calls and that everything is “prepared”. The kidnapped aunt, who is also an unaffiliated councilor at Maracena town hall, adds that one of these phone calls was made to “a woman.”
Why did you go to Maracena by metro?
After the alleged kidnapper put him in the trunk, he went to another nearby town, Armilla, where he had a rental place as he planned to move his balloon sales business from Malaga to Granada. There, she left him locked up, injured, and sought help until he managed to escape and get out of the vehicle. The kidnapper took the subway and made the 45-minute journey to Maracena. He was seen entering a hardware store where he bought a meat knife. If there are hardware stores nearby, no one understands why he went to that town.
Have you seen the mayor?
The mayor, Berta Linares, visibly defeated and in tears, reassured in her first statement that she did not live with her partner because she was in Malaga, and that she had last spoken to him via videoconference the night before she was abducted. . “She didn’t even know he was in maracena,” she said. However, at the municipal council called to explain what had happened, PP spokesperson Julio García directly asked the mayor if he had seen his partner the day he abducted his colleague, citing his statement before the police. “I gave this information to the Judicial Police that day,” he said, without providing further details.
Census scam?
According to the mayor, his ex-wife also confessed at the city council meeting on March 1, that she broke up with him after the kidnapping and was registered at her home in Maracena, although she said she continued to live. Malaga. It was recently registered “about a month ago” but “still not alive” so that would be a scam. The opposition also asked without answer who owned the property they had rented to set up their own business in Armilla and made a “personal exchange” between the councilors of these two municipalities.
What is the Civil Guard looking for?
Maracena town hall reported that it was not asked for any specific information or files, but received instructions to preserve documents in the areas of personnel, response, contracting and town planning. There is no particular doubt as to what may have been behind the kidnapping, but an urban plot was allegedly signed as the kidnapped councilor was detained against his will, as there were documents on urban agreements in his car.
Why were they contradicting?
The councilor took over from the city council in July 2021, when former mayor Noel López stepped into regional politics to become the Organizing Secretary of the Andalusian PSOE. Berta Linares was on the city council for fifteen years. However, in López’s final phase, it was Vanessa Romero who transferred the mayor’s signature and in many cases acted as mayor by accident. PP sources assure the opposition that no one believes he was chosen to take over because the mayor “will go to Seville but wants to leave someone to guard the farmhouse for him”. A profile they said didn’t fit the kidnapped councillor. Romero has been informed by his party that he will not be on the electoral lists again for next May.
How is the municipality?
Maracena town hall, although required by law, has avoided accountability in the last three years before the supervisory bodies, the Court of Accounts of Andalusia and the Court of Accounts. It is a municipality in the Granada metropolitan area, well connected to the capital, only five kilometers away, which has undergone significant transformation and growth over the past two decades.
What worries Ferraz?
The case has grown in size because former mayor Noel López is the current Agency Secretary of the PSOE, number two in the party. Much of that administration falls to the former mayor when the city council says it has brought all deals to justice since 2007. Now the opposition admits that no one is complaining about the urbanism, yes the staff. López was charged with “skipping the bullfighter” and insubordination with a court order to stop a business.