Moncloa tries to ward off the fear of a cascade like that of “only yes is yes” and stresses that the case is in the investigation phase
The Anti-Corruption Prosecutor’s Office has on the table the first review of the crime of embezzlement after the penal reform agreed by the Government with ERC to benefit those convicted and accused of the ‘procés’, which comes into force on Friday. The Central Court of Instruction number six of the National Court, which is investigating the ‘Acuamed case’ – the investigation that broke out in 2016 and affects several contracts of the public water company in the Mediterranean basins – has requested the Public Ministry to examine the indictment in case it is possible to reduce the penalties for non-profit embezzlement, as stated in the legal modification for this case.
Judge Joaquín Gadea understands that “the new reform of article 432 of the Penal Code could entail a revision of the writing” and considers it necessary to assess whether or not the transformation of the preliminary proceedings to summary proceedings is appropriate, since, with the embezzlement reform, the most serious crime of all those being investigated in this case, there could not be any criminal offense that exceeds nine years in prison, which would lead to maintaining the procedure as abbreviated.
With the previous Code, the embezzlement of public funds reached up to 12 years in prison regardless of whether the offender kept the money or not, and now the maximum penalty is four years if there is no appropriation, as is the case. The court focuses on the alleged fraudulent awarding of works to a dozen companies by Acuamed, a public company linked to the Ministry of the Environment, and on the falsification of certifications and settlements to increase the amounts received by those awarded the contracts of the public body, both with the popular ones and with the socialists.
The keys
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ABBREVIATED PROCEDURE
The judge of ‘Acuamed’ asks the Prosecutor’s Office to adjust his sentence request to the new text -
DIVERSION OF FUNDS
The change promoted by the Executive and ERC reduces the punishment for cases of unfair administration
The Government defended yesterday that there is no reason for alarm. Its spokesperson, Isabel Rodríguez, rejected, in her habitual appearance on Tuesdays after the Council of Ministers, that the request made to the Prosecutor’s Office by Judge Gadea allows certifying the fears expressed by some PSOE leaders or the warnings made by various jurists about the possibility that the legislative change originally devised to alleviate the main penalties of the ‘procés’ (sedition and embezzlement), give rise to a cascade of reductions in sentences for corruption, as has happened with more than a hundred sexual offenders since it entered the law of ‘only yes is yes’.
The Supreme Court ratifies the penalties of the ‘De Miguel plot’
Thirteen years after the first arrests, the biggest corruption scandal in the Basque Country has signed its judicial outcome. After studying for months the resources of the Prosecutor’s Office and the defenses, yesterday the Supreme Court ratified the main sentences imposed by the Álava Court on former leaders of the PNV in the ‘De Miguel case’. The High Court confirms a sentence of 12 years and 4 months in prison for the ringleader of the plot, the former leader of the PNV in Álava Alfredo de Miguel, who in any case will serve a maximum of 9 years.
Rodríguez argued that the judge’s request is nothing more than a logical “procedural step” in the investigation period when there has been a reform and from which no conclusion can still be drawn. But, above all, he argued that the modification of the Criminal Code – processed in an unusually urgent manner and justified by Pedro Sánchez as a step towards “coexistence” in Catalonia – will not allow “any type of corruption to go without criminal reproach”.
That there is no reproach is not what worries the different PSOE officials who, during the negotiation with the independentistas, showed their misgivings about the legal change. Five months away for the regional and local ones, what worries them is that they are prosecuted for media cases such as ‘Kitchen’, ‘Lezo’, ‘Púnica’ and the ‘ERE’, in which there was no personal enrichment, but diversion of funds public for spurious purposes, may have light penalties.
The ‘tributaries’ of the ‘Acuamed case’ in the Region of Murcia
The ‘Acuamed case’ also affects the Region of Murcia, where the public company has interests in two desalination plants (Águilas and Valdelentisco), in addition to the Torrevieja plant, which supplies water to thousands of irrigated hectares in the Community. The Civil Guard revealed in one of its reports on the case the “close collaboration” of Acuamed with Acciona to try to get the construction company to obtain around 19 million additional euros for the work on the Torrevieja desalination plant.
On the other hand, PP and Cs denounced in 2018 that the companies awarded the Águilas desalination plant had contributed to paying for the institutional advertising campaign of the Water Plan at the request of Acuamed. Behind the works on Cerro Colorado, the pipes to carry water from the desalination plant to the Lorca fields, a network of interests was supposedly hidden between various contractors and senior officials from the Ministry of Agriculture and Acuamed to obtain favorable treatment in the award of emergency works.
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