The former treasurer of the PP Luis Bárcenas is a little closer to obtaining parole. The General Secretariat of Penitentiary Institutions has agreed to classify the former senator and former treasurer of the PP in third degree prison after the Treatment Board of the Victoria Kent Social Insertion Center (CIS), in Madrid where he is serving his sentence in semi-freedom, recently proposed making it more flexible again his prison life regime, as legal and penitentiary sources have confirmed to EL PAÍS. The Anti-Corruption Prosecutor's Office does not plan to appeal the measure, according to sources from this organization, so if so the decision would be final. Bárcenas was until now in the second degree – the ordinary one, in which more than 73% of those convicted in Spain are – but article 100.2 of the Penitentiary Regime was applied to him since December 2022, with the approval of the National Court. , a rule that allows the living regime of a prisoner to be made more flexible to enjoy part of the benefits of prisoners classified as open regime.
In fact, the former popular treasurer has been leaving the prison grounds for 14 months every work day from 7:30 a.m. to 11:00 p.m. Interior set this schedule for him after Bárcenas justified that he was going to work as an accountant for a company owned by his son Guillermo, a musician and leader of the band Taburete, and that he had registered as a volunteer in a soup kitchen run by an order. religious. Although the new classification will not, therefore, entail any changes to this schedule – unless the center decides to apply telematic control to him after he moves to third grade by installing a bracelet, so he would no longer have to go to the center or to sleep―, the decision of Fernando Grande-Marlaska's department will mean other improvements in the short and medium term.
Thus, you will be able to enjoy 48 days of leave per year compared to the current 36 days. Furthermore, as of September, being in the third degree would allow him to aspire to the suspension of the sentence and, with it, to early conditional release upon completing on that date two thirds of the 12 years that the National Court established for effective compliance with the 29 years and one month that the Supreme Court imposed on him for Gürtel case of corruption. To achieve this benefit, an exceptional measure regulated by article 90.2 of the Penal Code and that only a judge can grant, the prisoner must have completed that part of the sentence and be classified, precisely, in the third degree, in addition to meeting other requirements, such as having had good behavior and having “carried out work, cultural or occupational activities.” […] from which a relevant and favorable modification of those of his personal circumstances related to his previous criminal activity has been derived.”
The former treasurer, in addition to working and collaborating with an NGO on his outings, has carried out a restorative justice workshop that included meetings with victims and is currently participating in the Program for Intervention in Economic Crimes (Pideco), a re-education plan for convicted persons. for corruption launched in Spanish prisons in January 2021. This is the program that, for example, Iñaki Urdangarin followed, after which Infanta Cristina's husband agreed to conditional freedom.
Conditional and ordinary release
In the event that the judge refuses to grant him early conditional release in September, Bárcenas – who will not extinguish the entire sentence until September 19, 2028 – may aspire in September 2025 to the ordinary one, contemplated in article 90.1 of the Code Criminal, having served three quarters of the sentence by then. Furthermore, by then the former treasurer of the PP will have turned 68 years old and, therefore, would be close to being a septuagenarian, a situation for which the Penal Code also contemplates the suspension of the execution of the remainder of the sentence in certain circumstances. In February 2021, the National Court agreed to the release of former Vice President of the Government Rodrigo Rato, sentenced to four and a half years for the scandal of the black cards, precisely because he was over 70 years old (he was about to turn 72) and showed a “favorable prognosis” for reintegration.
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Before Bárcenas, two other of the main people convicted by the Gürtel case, Francisco Correa and his lieutenant in the plot Pablo Crespo, had accessed the third grade. Both are serving their sentences in semi-freedom in the same prison facility as the former treasurer. In the case of Correa, sentenced to 105 years and seven months in seven trials for corruption and for which the National Court set a maximum prison stay of 18 years, the ringleader of the plot has enjoyed the open regime since June of last year. . In his case, he will serve two-thirds of the sentence in July 2025 and, therefore, will be eligible for early parole. In January 2027 he will have reached three quarters for the ordinary. He will not extinguish the sentence until July 9, 2031.
Crespo – sentenced in five pieces of the macro-corruption case to a total of 73 years and 4 months in prison, although the National Court set the maximum sentence to be 18 years – will be able to aspire to early parole in December 2025. and in June 2027 to the ordinary one. The sentence will expire on December 12, 2031. A fourth person convicted of the plot, Rosalía Iglesias, wife of Bárcenas and also in the CIS in the center of Madrid, agreed to semi-freedom last August after article 100.2 of the Penitentiary Regulations. Sentenced to 12 years and 11 months in prison, the maximum time in prison was set at seven years and six months, but since she did not enter preventive detention – unlike the former treasurer, Crespo or Correa – her degree of compliance with the penalty is lower even if it is lower. In fact, he will not reach two-thirds until October 2025. His prison calendar has two other dates in red: on May 28, 2026, he will have served three-quarters of the sentence and on April 11, 2028, the punishment will expire.
Retirement paperwork
Luis Bárcenas, who has met the retirement age requirement since October 2022, last summer began the paperwork to request the pension, demanding that the Interior certify his work activity during the more than four years that he was in the Soto del prison. Real. The law requires, in addition to exceeding a certain age, to have contributed two of the last 15 years of his working life. Given the possibility that he will not be able to do so precisely because of his two stays in prison since he was imprisoned for the first time in June 2013 and the fact that the courts did not recognize the employment relationship that he claimed to have maintained with the PP after having seen Spangled by the corruption case, the former treasurer has requested documentation from Penitentiary Institutions to solve it, as penitentiary sources detailed to this newspaper at the time.
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