This Tuesday, the Valencia Court began the trial for the alleged irregular financing of the 2007 and 2011 electoral campaigns of the PP of Valencia, which was then led by Rita Barberá, who died in November 2016. The defendants sit in the dock He was the right hand of Barberá herself, the former vice mayor of Valencia Alfonso Grau, the former secretary of the popular group in the Valencia City Council, Mari Carmen García Fuster and those responsible for a non-profit association and a foundation linked to the City Council that, supposedly, They were dedicated to providing funds for electoral campaigns.
The Anti-Corruption Prosecutor's Office and the popular prosecution, which represents Compromís, request that Grau be sentenced to nine years in prison for one crime of embezzlement and another of bribery; five years for those responsible for public entities for embezzlement; and one year for García Fuster for bribery.
Five agents from the Central Operational Unit (UCO) of the Civil Guard who participated in the investigation have ratified during the first session of the trial the reports that describe the operation in an account outside “any type of control.” For the 2007 campaign, the popular group signed a contract with the company Laterne for 150,000 euros when the real cost of the electoral expenses could have exceeded two million euros, according to one of the agents who, in any case, has calculated. noted that “it is difficult to quantify.” This company is, according to the accusation and the UCO, the one that served to channel income from municipal entities and different companies awarded by the City Council with which electoral expenses were later paid. In it, contributions were made from “collaborators and relatives” and cash income.
For the 2011 elections, in which Barberá confirmed his absolute majority, after the disappearance of the network of companies around Laterne, due to the death of their owner who was a friend of Vice Mayor Grau, the latter contacted another company for the electoral campaign, Goblins. “We verified that there were companies that only invoiced with Trasgos before the elections and during the campaign, and they were companies that had important economic interests with the City Council. Furthermore, a good part of them were the same ones that had already carried out this same operation in 2007″, the UCO researchers have pointed out. For electoral expenses, a contract of 170,000 euros was signed, but these were at least 110,000 euros more than what had been deposited, as explained by one of the agents. “It follows that there must have been another source of income,” he said.
In that account, outside the control of the electoral regime law, the Civil Guard also detected 50 deposits of 1,000 euros that local councilors and advisors of the PP municipal group made before receiving, in exchange, two banknotes of 500 euros of unknown origin, known as “the smurfing” that the same Provincial Court of Valencia filed due to the “notorious absence of evidence that duly justifies the perpetration of the objective elements of the crime”, a decision that was later ratified by the Supreme Court .
The first day has served for the defenses of the accused to present their preliminary issues and have agreed to allege the statute of limitations of crimes in the alleged box b to avoid the trial. The prosecutor has disagreed with the accounts of the limitation periods made by the lawyers who consider that there is no “continued” crime and the court has chosen not to attend to these requests and state that, in any case, it will be determined in the sentence. .
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