Anti-corruption requests immediate entry into Zaplana prison upon appreciating the risk of escape

Although the sentence of the Valencia Court, published just a week ago, is still not final, the prosecutor considers that there is a risk of escape. The parties will have to rule on this request at a hearing scheduled for November 7.

Zaplana already announced that will appeal to the Supreme Courtunderstanding that he has been convicted “by evidence based on opaque pacts and agreements and without any objective evidence” regarding his participation in the events.

The former leader of the Valencian PP was arrested in May 2018 and was in provisional prison until February 2019, after spending two months admitted to the La Fe Hospital in Valencia to be treated for leukemia.

The magistrates of the Fourth Section of the Court consider it proven that, being president of the Generalitat in 1997, rigged the public tender for ITV stations to obtain 6.4 million euros in bribes. A fortune that was diverted to Luxembourg to hide it – using his inner circle – and later return it to Spain, through a complex corporate structure.

According to the same resolution, Zaplana established a corporate network in Panama with bank accounts in Andorra to receive more money -9.8 million- of illicit origin. «It was not a specific act, but abehavior that lasted over timefor many years”, during his political career and after leaving it in 2008.

For all this, the Court also imposed 17 years and 10 months of disqualification from employment and public office, another three from the exercise of his profession, and fines that amounted toan amount greater than 25 million euros. Although he was acquitted of the crime of being a criminal group, the ruling decreed the confiscation of different assets and amounts seized during the investigation of the case. The ruling also convicted five defendants and acquitted eight others.