The court of the fourth section of the Provincial Court of Valencia, which sentenced Eduardo Zaplana to 10 years and five months in prison for the corrupt plot of the ‘Erial case’, has ruled out sending the former president of the Generalitat Valenciana to prison, despite that the Anti-Corruption Prosecutor’s Office alleged the risk of flight and the seriousness of the crimes. “It is not in my mind to escape,” said Zaplana.
“He is a free and innocent man,” said the lawyer of the former PP minister, Daniel Campos, at the hearing called by the court for this Thursday. The anti-corruption prosecutor, Pablo Ponce, has raised the “nature and seriousness” of the penalties and crimes “associated with political corruption” and in the exercise of his “public functions”, for which Zaplana has been convicted. Ponce has argued that the former popular minister has access to people who “can manage assets abroad.”
The representative of the Public Ministry has recalled that a former senior official of Zaplana, the former general director of the Valencian Institute of Exports (Ivex) José María Tabares, sentenced to five years in prison for fraud, fled to Japan, a country that does not have an extradition treaty with Spain. The convicted man has alleged that it was the Generalitat Valenciana itself that filed a complaint against Tabares, leading to the conviction and subsequent escape.
“Tabares is a fugitive,” said prosecutor Pablo Ponce, who elaborates on the “possibility” that Zaplana has assets abroad that “he has not made available to the Spanish authorities.” He has also indicated that there are countries in which “with economic resources you have access” to health care, in reference to the defense’s allegations regarding the state of health of the convicted person.
The lawyer Daniel Campos has provided the same 2019 medical report on Eduardo Zaplana’s health that led to his provisional release. The defense considers that there is “no indication that Zaplana will evade justice” and recalls that he “rigorously” complied with the measures imposed on him after his release. “He did not take the opportunity to flee from justice,” said Campos, who recalled that his client is “at the disposal of the court.”
The defense argues that Zaplana has his home and his family in Benidorm, in addition to his pension. The court has ended the hearing after the interventions of the parties and the former regional president is, for the moment, free pending the court’s decision.
After leaving the City of Justice, Zaplana has assured that he will continue “fighting” with an appeal to the Supreme Court. Regarding the allegations of the Anti-Corruption representative, he said bluntly: “The prosecutor can say what he wants.”
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