News
The
Month in
n Ben Fellows arrested
José
Francisco
Reyes
n Reyes sentenced
The first verdict in the Union Case has been issued,
and will see the ex-Mayor of Yaiza, José Francisco
Reyes, go to jail for six months. Reyes will also be
prohibited from holding public office for 12 years.
Reyes accepted the sentence demanded by the
prosecution before the case reached a judgement,
meaning that there will be no appeal. The sentence
relates to illegal licences granted to the architect
Carlos Morales and his wife Alexia of Greece, a
cousin of King Felipe VI of Spain, which were used
for the construction of a chalet.
The licences have also been nullified by the verdict,
although the new Yaiza Plan has conveniently
reclassified the land on which the chalet stands,
meaning the building can now be legalized.
Reyes faces further charges in the so-called
“Yacht case”.
6
| January 2015 | The Gazette
Ben Fellows, who had been living on
Lanzarote for most of 2014, has been arrested
at Birmingham International Airport on charges
of perverting the course of justice.
According to the Birmingham Mail, Fellows
was detained just after midnight on December
14th by the West Midlands Police, acting on
behalf of the Metropolitan Police. He was
remanded in custody to appear in Southwark
Crown Court on 29th December.
Fellows was arrested, questioned and released
on police bail in 2013. He has stated online that
“I failed to return to Paddington Green Police
Station for further questioning on January
16th,2014” and claimed that he left the UK in
late 2013 “fearing for my own safety.”
Ben Fellows
n The flying turtle
Leona the loggerhead turtle finally flew back to the
Canaries in early December, months after being stranded
thousands of miles off course in Galway, Ireland.
The 15-year-old turtle was discovered in a comatose
state on a County Clare shore after heavy Atlantic
storms last winter. She was nursed back to health at a
Galway aquarium and finally transferred by Aer Lingus
to a specialist centre in Gran Canaria, where she will
be assessed and released.
That doesn´t mean Leona´s many Irish fans will lose
contact with her, though. She has been fitted with a
GPS device which will regularly tweet her location.
n Storm of complaints
Ryanair has offered full refunds to passengers who
were diverted to Fuerteventura during the storms of
late November, and who paid for taxis and ferry tickets
out of their own pocket.
140 passengers from Dublin were diverted to
Fuerteventura, where they claim they were given no
information on further arrangements. Many took a taxi
to Corralejo and boarded the ferry of their own accord.
Others who waited for the bus found no one from the
airline at the port, and no details on how to proceed.
Passengers on a Stansted-bound flight also