Pressure mounts on former Tolox mayor

FORMER mayor of Tolox, Juan Vera, is collecting trials and sentences like stamps, as he faces eight separate charges in court in just one week, starting today (February 17).

Vera, who resigned from his post last October after being given a 15-month jail sentence and banned from public office for 10 years for disregarding planning regulations and issuing building licences for non-developable land, maintains that he lacked sufficient qualifications and simply signed licences for projects that looked correct.

Yet Malaga judges maintain that the former mayor and the municipal architect reached an agreement to boost construction in the village, purposefully disregarding planning regulations.

He has already been found guilty on five separate charges, but has not yet spent time in prison as the Spanish system often doesn’t lock up people who receive short sentences.

But with another eight trials in process this week, the public prosecutor’s office is putting on the pressure to see Vera put behind bars.