Governing Popular Party and its ex-treasurer, sentenced in massive corruption case
Spain¡¯s High Court gives businessman at center of so-called ¡°G¨¹rtel¡± probe, Francisco Correa, 51 years in jail, while Luis B¨¢rcenas gets 33-year term
Judges overseeing the main trial in the so-called G¨¹rtel case, the largest probe into political corruption in Spain¡¯s democratic history, have sentenced the main ringleaders to several decades in prison.
Spain¡¯s High Court, the Audiencia Nacional, has slapped G¨¹rtel mastermind Francisco Correa with 51 years in jail for heading a corrupt network that worked with party officials in Popular Party (PP)-run governments between 1999 and 2006. The case got its name from the German word for correa, which means ¡°belt¡± in Spanish.
B¨¢rcenas will have to serve 33 years in prison and pay a fine of more than €44 million
The court also found former PP treasurer Luis B¨¢rcenas guilty of evading more than €11.5 million in taxes between 2000 and 2009, and of taking €1.24 million in bribes in exchange for facilitating public contract awards to business figures who were introduced to him by Correa.
B¨¢rcenas will have to serve 33 years in prison and pay a fine of more than €44 million for these crimes. The former treasurer has played a major role in unveiling the scandal. In June 2013, he told the investigating judge that he had kept secret ledgers related to a party slush fund, and that the orders came down from the current and past presidents and general secretaries of the party, reaching back to 1982.
B¨¢rcenas claimed that he continued with the secret accounts until 2009, when the scandal broke following his implication in the G¨¹rtel contracts-for-kickbacks corruption case.
In a 1,687-page judgment, the court finds 29 out of the 37 defendants guilty of a wide range of crimes, from taking bribes to document forgery, embezzlement, money laundering, influence peddling and more.
Political reaction
"The response to today's ruling should be a no-confidence motion by the opposition. We are ready to support [Socialist leader] Pedro S¨¢nchez if he puts it forward. Democracy cannot tolerate criminals at the helm of our government," said Iglesias, whose party is the third-largest force in Congress.
Senior officials from the main opposition Socialist Party (PSOE) said they will meet on Friday morning to analyze the political situation following the ruling.
"There will be a before and an after in Ciudadanos' relations with the government for the remainder of the political term, following the G¨¹rtel ruling," said Albert Rivera, the leader of Ciudadanos, a party whose support has been crucial to Rajoy's minority government. Ciudadanos, which is currently leading voter intention polls, has taken a significant chunk of voters away from the PP partly through its message of zero tolerance for corruption.
In January 2013, EL PA?S published the B¨¢rcenas ledgers, which record cash contributions and donations made by businessmen, and alleged bonus payments to top party officials.
B¨¢rcenas¡¯s wife, Rosal¨ªa Iglesias, has also been sentenced to 15 years in prison. Investigators believe this could have an effect on B¨¢rcenas¡¯ willingness to disclose more details of the PP¡¯s internal finances, which he suggested he might do after being placed in pre-trial detention in June 2013 and spending 19 months at Soto del Real penitentiary in Madrid.
The ex-wife of Correa, Carmen Rodr¨ªguez Quijano, has been given 14 years and eight months in jail.
In a two-to-one vote, the three-judge panel also found that the PP as a legal entity benefited financially from G¨¹rtel¡¯s corrupt practices. It has been sentenced to pay €245,492.
Mariano Rajoy testified in court over G¨¹rtel, thus becoming the first serving prime minister of Spain to testify in a criminal case
The same goes for Ana Mato, a former health minister who must now return €27,857, representing the amount of money that G¨¹rtel spent on trips and gifts for her family. The gifts were not bestowed to Mato herself, who is not thought to have been directly involved in G¨¹rtel, but to her ex-husband Jes¨²s Sep¨²lveda, the former mayor of Pozuelo de Alarc¨®n (Madrid), who has been sentenced to 14 years in prison over G¨¹rtel.
In July of last year, Mariano Rajoy testified in court over the G¨¹rtel case, thus becoming the first serving prime minister of Spain to testify in a criminal case.
The far-reaching G¨¹rtel case engulfed 37 business and political figures with ties to the PP, and it has dogged the ruling party for years, becoming the largest corruption scandal in a series that also includes the P¨²nica case.
More recently, the Madrid branch of the PP was rocked by a scandal that ultimately forced regional premier Cristina Cifuentes to step down. On Tuesday Eduardo Zaplana, a former PP minister in the government of Jos¨¦ Mar¨ªa Aznar, was arrested on allegations of money laundering.
The latest voter intention survey by the pollster Metroscopia for EL PA?S shows 19.1% support for the PP, nearly half what it was in late 2016.
English version by Susana Urra.
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