The trial of the former president of the Generalitat Valencia and former Minister of Labor, Eduardo Zaplana, concluded this Tuesday the witness testimony sessions during which a fragile version of the defense of the PP leader, accused of embezzlement, bribery and money laundering, was presented. of capital, among other crimes. Most of the witness statements have been aimed at trying to dismantle the crime that, in principle, is more supported, that of the rigging of public contract awards for which Zaplana received large bribes, according to the accusation.
To support its thesis, the prosecution relied on the testimony of the president of the ITV station contracting table, Eduardo Zaplana’s own former chief of staff, Juan Francisco García, who admitted that the specifications were drawn up so that a certain commercial, that of the Cotino family, “was in an advantageous situation.” García, who also sits in the dock, acknowledged his participation in order to obtain a reduction in the sentencing request from the prosecutor. The confession of the president of the hiring table was joined by that of the Cotinos. Both José and Vicente Cotino, nephews of the former director general of the police, Juan Cotino, acknowledged that the contest was “predetermined” so that one of the companies in the family business group would take one of the lots and that, subsequently, they paid for that agreement, that is, a bribe. The auditor also stated that, up to two hours before the award, he participated in the tender, about which he had some objections and alleged that the public coffers would have benefited more from the award if more value had been given to the economic offer. Among the witnesses called by Eduardo Zaplana there have been former councilors, general directors and regional secretaries, all of them freely appointed positions and appointed by the PP that Zaplana himself led at the time, who assured that the awards were made transparently and correctly and that they never received pressures to choose a certain company. However, before them, a technician had already indicated that, in the case of manipulation, it does not occur at the time of the contracting table meetings, but before, with the drafting of the specifications.
The witnesses called to testify by the defense of the former president have focused on trying to defend the cleanliness of the awards, that is, to appease the accusation of embezzlement. If this crime does not exist, the accusation of bribery becomes more complicated. Furthermore, Zaplana never put anything in his name despite the fact that witnesses have placed him in the negotiations for some plots in the luxury urbanization La Finca, in Pozuelo de Alarcón, for some penthouses in Altea (Alicante), living in an apartment Núñez de Balboa Street, in Madrid, or enjoying, almost exclusively, a boat of which, supposedly, he only had a small part. The investigation maintains that all of this was acquired with the money collected from the awarding of the ITV and that, although it was collected by Joaquín Barceló, a childhood friend of Zaplana, the recipient was actually the leader of the PP. Barceló himself also confessed to being a front man for the former Valencian president.
In addition to the public officials who have come to the trial to defend him, Eduardo Zaplana has had two other testimonies in his favor that, however, have sometimes proven implausible. On the one hand, former commissioner José Manuel Villarejo pointed out that the entire accusation is a conspiracy promoted by the former president of the Government, Mariano Rajoy, due to his fear that Zaplana would challenge him for the leadership of the party. For this he relied on the work of the CNI and the Civil Guard, according to what he said. The other testimony was that of Marcos Benavent, the self-proclaimed Money Junkie, who went from wanting to collaborate with justice to declaring that he had invented everything.
The judgment of the call wasteland case, who sits in the dock in addition to the former president and fourteen other defendants, concluded the witness testimony phase this Tuesday. Tomorrow, Wednesday, the expert examination will begin, so that the final phase of conclusions and reports will probably begin next Tuesday, after which it will be heard for sentencing.
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