The Government pardons a businesswoman sentenced to prison for a work accident with one dead and two injured
This week the Government pardoned Andrea Martín Targa, sole administrator of the Ron Montero company in Motril (Granada), from an important family of businessmen in the region, to prevent her from entering prison. The businesswoman was sentenced to three years in prison for breaches of occupational risk prevention in the company, where an occupational accident took place in 2014 in which a worker, Miguel García, died and two other employees, his brother ( Manuel García) and another partner, Miguel Lorente. First in a Social Court and then in the Court of Granada, the magistrates convicted Martín Targa of one crime of homicide and two others of injury "due to serious negligence".
The fatal accident at the Ron Montero factory in 2014, the result of an explosion and, above all, the triple conviction of Andrea Martín Targa were very prominent for several reasons. The first of them, because the affected company and the family of businessmen behind the brand are not "anyone".
Ana Martín Targa is a member of a famous Granada business family in the region, with a powerful family company with more than 50 years of history. That same 2014, Andrea Martín Targa joined as Vice President of the Employers' Association of Granada (CGE)led by today's leader of the SME employers' association at the state level, Gerardo Cuerva.
In addition, the condemned woman's uncle is Manuel Martín Montero, a very famous person in the province for his facet as a businessman and politician and, recently, throughout the country for having irregularly registered Macarena Olona in her home. Its about top leader of Vox in Granadaformerly a PP politician, famous hotel business owner and family owner of large sugar cane estates on the Costa Tropical.
But there is also a second reason that put the focus on this case, because it is new. It is not very common for employers to render criminal accounts in work accidents, even in those that leave fatalities and when there have been prevention breaches. In this case, there are two forceful sentences that took the businesswoman in question to jail.
The proven facts show that "protection against explosive atmospheres" was "expressly excluded from the initial evaluation of occupational risks", such as the one that caused the accident that ended the life of Miguel García and weighed down that of his brother Manuel and that of Miguel Lorent.
Assessing the protection against "explosive atmospheres" meant an additional payment for Ron Montero to the company to which he had outsourced the risk assessment, according to the ruling. Justice held the businesswoman responsible for this decision, which violates the legal requirements in terms of risk prevention.
Andrea Martín Targa, who used to be outside the country, tried to derive criminal responsibility from one of the injured workers, Miguel Lorente, to whom he had delegated prevention efforts. The judges rejected such a claim: "This exclusion constitutes a business decision, absolutely voluntary and falls within the sphere of diligence that is minimally required of the person responsible for a company dedicated to the handling and transformation of alcohol."
"The omission of management in the preventive plan that we prosecute can only be classified as very serious," concludes the Court of Granada. "It is not possible to describe his behavior except as seriously reckless, at least," the magistrates pointed out in the sentence that was final.
The media focus on the case has been reactivated this week with the pardon approved by the coalition government of the PSOE and United We Can. The Official State Gazette (BOE) has published the grace measure for Andrea Martín Targa, signed by the Minister of Justice and "after deliberation by the Council of Ministers" last Tuesday.
"Given the circumstances of the convicted person and according to the information in the aforementioned file," it is estimated that "reasons of justice and equity concur" to commute the prison sentence "for another two years in prison," for the that he will not enter prison, "provided that he does not commit an intentional crime again within three years from the publication of the royal decree," the pardon includes.
On what are these reasons of "justice and equity" to prevent the entry into prison of the businesswoman, convicted of three serious crimes, in the Ministry of Justice they mention that the pardoned "had no record, she has paid civil liability", the facts dates back to 2014, has three minor children and has several volumes of signatures of adhesions to the request for pardon. In the Ministry led by Pilar Llop they mention that there are "favorable reports from everyone, even from those affected".
The workers seriously injured in the accident (one of them the brother of the deceased employee) have simply warned that they will not appeal the approved pardon, which had a large campaign of support. In fact, as they collected the chronicles of the entire process of El Ideal de Granadathe workers affected by the accident expressed during the trial that their intention was not to resort to criminal proceedings, which ended with the prison sentence, but both did so after Andrea Martín Targa did not comply with the compensation for the damage caused to the employees.
And, by the statements of one of the two affected, it is clear that he does not seem "favorable" to the pardon even if he does not challenge it. The worker Miguel Lorente, whose body was burned by more than 60% in the accident and is still suffering significant health consequences, has criticized the measure of grace in various media. "The pardon is not granted because of reasons of justice and equity, but as a result of pressure. There has been a huge number of authorities that have requested it," warned the worker. to The Objective.
"This family is very important in the area. They are used to getting away with everything and the circumstances prove them right again," adds Miguel Lorente to this medium, where he makes it ugly that the businesswoman "is a millionaire and in the process declared herself insolvent ".
"You cannot send the message that, if you kill at work, then the pardon comes. We are not aware of the lives that workplace accidents cost. We are left on a page of events in a newspaper and what we have to do is reinforce the measures and put an end to the scourge, not pardon", Lorente has also criticized in The Ideal of Granada.
CCOO has criticized the grace measure: "It's called impunity." In the union they remember that it is usually complex for work accident cases to prosper in criminal courts, as this case of more than seven years of waiting to hold the trial for a fatal heat stroke in the pit in Seville.
"Sentences are seldom handed down that imply imprisonment for fatal work accidents. And when they are handed down, the Government pardons the guilty parties. Although the sentence proves the most absolute breach of safety as in this case," the CCOO has denounced. .
