The National Court has taken another step to seat Francisco Granados, former general secretary of the PP in Madrid, on the bench, for his participation in the alleged box b of the regional party. The Criminal Chamber has rejected the appeal presented by the former counselor of Esperanza Aguirre to try to knock down the indictment issued by Judge Manuel García-Castellón last October, which implicates him in the alleged plot of irregular financing of the popular for the electoral campaign of the autonomous elections of 2011. Through a resolution dated June 19, to which EL PAÍS had access, the court dismissed the allegations of the former political leader and confirmed the proposal to try him for this line of investigation of the Punic case (known as Piece 9): “There are clear indications [contra él]”. This decision cannot be appealed.
In its argument, the Criminal Chamber stresses that the evidence points “provisionally” to the fact that Granados, as director of the PP campaign in Madrid in 2011, “manipulated and falsified” the electoral “accounts” that were presented to the organs inspectors: “Or contributed to said purposes.” In addition, the court adds, by holding at that time the status of advisor to the Presidency of the Community of Madrid, he also allegedly “attracted” the businessman Alejandro de Pedro “so that he, through his companies, could do [mejora de la] reputation on-line” in favor of Granados himself and “other relevant members of the Madrid Executive, charged to public funds”. Precisely, just over a month ago, the National Court has sentenced De Pedro to four years and three months of disqualification for carrying out similar work for senior officials of the León Provincial Council.
Piece 9 constitutes one of the great lines of investigation of the Punic case, in which the investigating judge came to impute three former presidents of the Community of Madrid: Esperanza Aguirre, Ignacio González and Cristina Cifuentes. However, after receiving the final report from the Anti-Corruption Prosecutor’s Office on the investigations, García-Castellón limited the accusations and circumscribed the responsibility of the box to Granados and Beltrán Gutiérrez, former manager of the popular Madrid people. According to the investigators, they do not have sufficient evidence to point higher —although the PSOE, appearing as popular accusation together with the Association of Democratic Lawyers for Europe (Adade), has appealed this decision to try to seat Aguirre and González on the bench , among other former senior officials.
In his indictment, the judge maintains that Gutiérrez and Granados devised “an operation from the PP campaign committee to hide the real expenses” of the 2011 elections, which were not declared to the Chamber of Accounts. The system consisted in that, as “it was done in previous electoral periods”, a series of “like-minded businessmen” made “contributions of cash” to the training — “which were delivered, directly or indirectly, to the general secretary ”—and others invoiced false services to hide the real ones. “The relationship between Granados and Gutiérrez was one of full trust,” also highlighted the magistrate, who considered other alleged irregularities detected in the 2007 and 2008 elections prescribed.
Despite this, Granados filed an appeal to try to bring down his prosecution. Among other issues, the former secretary general alleged that his campaign manager status was nothing more than an “honorary position,” and that he had “no real control” of party accounts. In addition, the former counselor reproached the Civil Guard for placing him as the “main artist of all this copla”, and affirmed that García-Castellón “contradicted” himself by prosecuting him and leaving out the senior officials who were above him. he. According to Granados, Aguirre and Ignacio González were the people who “could have managed or known” everything that happened in the finances of the training, by “entering their faculties.”
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“They want to forcefully involve Granados in the procedure, without taking into account all the elements that distort the accusations against him,” explained the defense of the popular, who put on the table the possibility that the events of 2011 had also prescribed. However, the Criminal Chamber rejects all his allegations. The court recalls that there is enough evidence to sit him on the bench: such as wiretapping and seized documents. Among others, according to the summary, a black Moleskine notebook was found in his house, with notes on electoral acts and annotations arranged in two columns, each headed by the words in English “in” [dentro] and “out” [fuera]”. According to the Civil Guard, it constitutes clear proof of the movements in the box b of the PP in Madrid.
The eight defendants
The Criminal Chamber indicates that Granados faces possible electoral crimes, bribery and influence peddling. In addition to Francisco Granados and Beltrán Gutiérrez, two men most trusted by Esperanza Aguirre, Judge García-Castellón processed another six people in October for Piece 9 of the Punic case: among others, the businessman Alejandro de Pedro himself; Isabel Gallego, former press officer for the popular president; and Borja Sarasola, former director of Ignacio González. At the moment, according to the data collected by EL PAÍS, the court has confirmed the prosecution of six of the eight defendants, and has annulled that of one: Francisco Lobo, a former high-ranking official in the first government of Madrid president Isabel Díaz Ayuso.
This latest decision by the court represents a major setback for Granados, who in June managed to bring down his prosecution in Piece 5, which deals with alleged irregular adjudications in various municipalities of the Community (Valdemoro, Torrejón de Velasco and Serranillos del Valle). In this case, the magistrates did accept the appeal of the former general secretary of the PP, who was also mayor of Valdemoro, and who alleged that the concessions under suspicion in Part 5 occurred between 2010 and 2014, after he had left the mayor and even, in some cases, when he had already left politics.
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