This Tuesday, the Government will grant a partial pardon to José Luis Peñas, the former councilor of the Popular Party in Majadahonda (Madrid) who uncovered the Gürtel case and who was sentenced to four years and nine months in prison for participating in the corrupt activities of the plot. government sources tell elDiario.es.
The grace measure does not affect the prison sentence – which was suspended by the National Court – but it will allow him to retain his job as a municipal ordinance in the Madrid City Council. The Government bases the pardon on the existence of “reasons of justice and equity”, which are two of the three requirements, along with public utility, that the law contemplates to motivate the pardon measures. Its concession is part of a package to strengthen the means for the fight against corruption of the regeneration plan to which the Executive will give the green light this Tuesday.
The royal decree that the Council of Ministers will approve commutes the two sentences of absolute disqualification that were imposed (one of three years and another of two years and one month) for two sentences of special disqualification for freely appointed or elected public positions. “In this way, the pardoned person can resume his livelihood, so that reporting corruption does not ruin his life, but it does not go unpunished either,” indicate government sources, who maintain that Peñas’ work was “fundamental to being able to investigate.” and prosecute the largest corruption scheme in democracy, something that could have been very difficult without their collaboration.”
Both the Supreme Court and the Prosecutor’s Office were in favor of granting this partial pardon. The report of the judges of the Criminal Chamber of the high court highlighted Peñas’ attitude during all these years and the data he made available to Justice. They highlighted that “despite his conviction” he has appeared as a witness in all the separate pieces of the case and that “in all of them, his testimony has been constant, coincidental and even brave.” For its part, the Prosecutor’s Office took as a reference the community directive on the protection of whistleblowers.
Your recordings, fundamental evidence
On November 7, 2007, Peñas presented to the UDEF a detailed complaint and dozens of hours of recordings that he had secretly made of Francisco Correa, leader of the Gürtel plot, in which some of his illegal businesses were revealed. Correa had been his personal friend, but he ended up betraying him to uncover the case. These audios became the fundamental evidence of a case with 37 defendants and that directly affected the internal structure of the PP. However, they did not avoid his conviction.
The Supreme Court justices who confirmed the ruling of the National Court described their collaboration as “essential” and admitted that their recordings had been “of great help” in clarifying the facts. But they maintained his sentence by considering it proven that he collected almost 40,000 euros in bribes and that he helped Correa keep the Majadahonda adjudications under control, where he started as an official and ended up as a councilor. That is to say, he participated in that corruption at first, although he later began clandestinely recording the members of the plot.
Peñas was sentenced to five years and nine months in prison for crimes of illicit association, bribery, falsification of documents, embezzlement, prevarication and falsification. He never went to prison, since the National Court suspended his entry into prison during the execution of the sentence. He did so based on two arguments. On the one hand, the fact that none of the prison sentences, separately, exceed two years. And, on the other, the “important reparative effort” that he had made by depositing “significant amounts into the court’s appropriation account” in accordance with his economic capacity.
The Government considers that this pardon “tries to be consistent with the new rules for the protection of informants, from which Peñas could not benefit at the time since they did not exist.” “It is an incentive for those who denounce corruption and a warning to the corrupt: some will be more protected and others will be more exposed,” government sources maintain.
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