Juan Antonio Roca’s defence has been attack, criticising the prosecutors’ office and the police investigation of presenting him in their reports as ‘a defeated person, burnt out and on the dole’,

Juan Antonio Roca, the ex Marbella Municipal Real Estate Assessor, and the man at the centre of the Malaya case currently underway in the court in Málaga, has insisted that there is proof that he arrived in Marbella with money.

Roca’s defence has been attack, criticising the prosecutors’ office and the police investigation of presenting him in their reports as ‘a defeated person, burnt out and on the dole’, before he arrived in Marbella Town Hall in 1992. Roca told the chamber that there is proof that at that time he had a large sum of capital of as much as 200 million € which allowed him to develop his businesses.

Roca was declaring on Monday in the second section of the Malaya case which is dedicated to money laundering. At one point the President of the Chamber, José Godino, had to call him to order to stop his attacks.

Roca’s lawyer, Rocio Amigo, said that in 1991, a year before his arrival in Marbella, Roca had assets of 620 million pesetas which he had amassed thanks to a series of ‘buying cheap and selling well’.

It was not until 1993 however, on the advice of his lawyers, did he decide to tell the taxman about his assets.

Also declaring this week has been the Madrid based lawyer, Manuel Sánchez Zubizarreta, one of the main partners used by Roca. He admitted to the Anti-Corruption Prosecutor, Juan Carlos López Caballero, that he created and personally managed as many as 22 companies for Roca, understanding that Roca’s name could not appear on the documents because he had already a sentence for a fraudulent bankruptcy. He told the court that Roca knew what he was doing, and that he never had to explain anything to him, indeed there were times he said he learned things from Roca.