The Public Prosecutor's Office files a complaint against Pedro Bestard for the official cars case

PalmaThe Public Prosecutor's Office of the Balearic Islands has agreed to file a complaint against the second vice-president of the Council of Mallorca, Pedro Bestard (Vox), following the complaint by the PSIB regarding the use of the island institution's official vehicles. The complaint, filed on July 2, indicated that Bestard had repeatedly used Council vehicles for private trips, with the fuel and other expenses that this entailed. The PSIB considers that the facts could constitute continuous embezzlement of public funds, perversion of justice, and document forgery.

Bestard has denied having made irregular use of the official vehicles and, in an appearance before the Council's Transparency Commission last May, demanded that the opposition parties apologize to him. "If I go from Manacor to Alcúdia and I have to stop for lunch at Ses Torres, I will stop there. Or at Es Cruce," he said. During the intervention, however, he did not clarify whether he had given orders to leave the vehicles without signs, nor the routes and kilometers he had covered, nor why two Council cars had been seen spending the night in front of his house.

Bestard arrived at the Council headquarters in an official car with a chauffeur and demanded that, once the reports commissioned by the institution's president, Llorenç Galmés, were made public, the left-wing parties should apologize to him. "I want them to apologize to me publicly," he snapped at the socialist spokesperson, Catalina Cladera. During the appearance, however, both Cladera and the spokesperson for MÉS per Mallorca, Catalina Inés Perelló, demanded his resignation.

According to a report to which ARA Balears had access, Bestard has three cars for his exclusive use, while his department has 19 unusable vehicles and suffers the consequences of an aging fleet that needs urgent renovation. These are a Dacia Sandero, acquired at the end of 2023; a Ford Ranger, from 2024; and a Subaru Crosstrek, from 2026. The vice-president reportedly claimed these three vehicles for himself despite also having an official car available for his travel. In the case of the Dacia, the document points out that only Bestard has the keys and that, on one occasion, he lost them, an incident that resulted in an expense of 430 euros.

The report also questions the destination of one of the vehicles acquired to renew the fleet. "The purchase responded to the need for renovation of an old fleet with significant operational shortcomings, especially for the brigades and technical services of the department," the Secretariat points out. Instead of contributing to alleviating this situation, however, the car has remained at the disposal of the vice-president. "It is on record that the three vehicles assigned to the councilor have remained under his full availability," the document emphasizes.