A FORMER Marbella councillor who fled Spain 19 years ago to avoid being indicted in an infamous corruption case has been arrested at Madrid airport on Wednesday morning.
The Policia Nacional database showed up the name of Carlos Fernandez and that he was wanted by the National Court.
He had flown in from Argentina where he had been since 2006.
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Fernandez was wanted by an investigating judge for his involvement in the so-called ‘Malaya case’ involving bribery, property fraud and money laundering.
It eventually resulted in convictions for over 50 senior officials in 2013.
These included former city planning chief Juan Antonio Roca, who was jailed for 11 years and fined €240 million for pocketing huge sums.
Two of Marbella’s former mayors were also handed jail terms over the scams, which came to light in 2006.
Marisol Yague and Julian Munoz received sentences of six and two years, respectively.
A total of 85 men and women were accused in the biggest-ever case of local political corruption in Spanish history.
Roca, who managed the city’s planning department in the 1990s, became one of Spain’s richest men before he was accused of masterminding the corruption.
When Carlos Fernandez heard that Judge Miguel Angel Torres wanted to quiz him in 2006, his lawyer said he was not available because he was walking the Camino de Santiago pilgrimage route.
He was last known to be in Spain at a hotel in Ponferrada before crossing the border into Portugal with ‘little or no customs control’.
Fernandez then took a flight to Brazil, and eventually ended up in Buenos Aires.
He was listed as a defendant in 10 other judicial proceedings with accusations of prevarication and crimes against territorial planning.
As for the ‘Malaya case’ an international arrest warrant had been issued for him, meaning imprisonment if he was arrested.
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