Conditional release for former deputy minister Agustín Barberá, the last person imprisoned for the ERE, for health reasons

The El Puerto III prison treatment board has granted the third degree of penitentiary status to the former Andalusian vice-councillor Agustín Barberá, the last of the former senior officials who was in prison for the political part of the ERE. The former socialist leader has obtained conditional release from the El Puerto de Santa María prison (Cádiz) for health reasons due to the “serious and incurable illness” he suffers from, in a decision ratified by the General Directorate of Penitentiary Institutions, with the acquiescence of the Public Prosecutor’s Office and the Penitentiary Surveillance Court, reports Europa Press. Barberá’s release does not obey the recent sentences of the Constitutional Court that led to the release from prison of other former senior officials in the ERE case, denied in July by the Provincial Court of Seville. The judges held that the former deputy minister did not appeal for protection to the court of guarantees and, therefore, its rulings could not be applied to him “because it was a very personal appeal.”

Barberá entered prison in April 2023, sentenced to seven years and one day in prison for embezzlement in the ERE political part. His defense then requested the suspension of the sentence due to the cancer he suffers from – and which has now led to his conditional release – and did so before José Antonio Griñán requested it for the same reasons. Unlike what happened with the former president of the Junta, the Provincial Court of Seville denied the suspension of the sentence, considering a year and a half ago that, although Barberá suffered from “a serious and incurable disease”, in view of the medical treatment sent by his defense and the report from the penitentiary center, his treatment could “be provided in said center, with the hospital check-ups” to which he should be subjected.

Barberá’s lawyer, Alfonso Martínez del Hoyo, welcomed her conditional release on Friday. “It is a fair and necessary decision, perfectly suited to the constitutional purposes of the sentence and the correct application of penitentiary legislation, given that Barberá suffers from a serious and incurable illness,” said the lawyer. Barberá’s defense did not file an appeal for protection before the Constitutional Court after the Supreme Court confirmed her conviction for embezzlement and prevarication in the ERE case, as did other senior officials who have obtained full or partial protection from the high court and were released. “It is the convicted person himself who consented to his current situation,” said the magistrates of the Court of Seville in a resolution made known on July 12.

Before Barberá —the last of those imprisoned for the ERE who remained in prison to date—, the former Minister of Employment Antonio Fernández and the former Deputy Minister of Innovation Jesús María Rodríguez Román were released, whose sentences for embezzlement were partially annulled by the Constitutional Court on July 3 and after having requested protection from the court of guarantees. Barberá served as second in command in the Employment Department of the Junta de Andalucía when it was headed by Antonio Fernández, between 2004 and 2010. His signature appears on numerous payment orders on the ERE aid directed to IDEA. The sentence of the Provincial Court of Seville in 2019 found him guilty for “his direct participation in the disposition of the funds and allowing the general director of Labor to [Javier Guerrero, primero, y Juan Márquez, después] “dispose of” them, and sentenced him to seven years and one day in prison and 18 years of disqualification. The Supreme Court ratified the ruling.