Eduardo Zaplana has attended, even though he could be absent, each and every session of the trial, which has been heard for sentencing, in which it will be decided whether he is responsible for the crimes of malfeasance, bribery and money laundering, among others. Since March 21, he has sat next to his secretary for more than 30 years, Mitsouko Henríquez, also accused, in a corner of the row of chairs prepared for the 14 defendants who, for the most part, stopped going to school. the room once they were questioned. The former president of the Generalitat and former Minister of Labor has attended the sometimes marathon sessions on time. He has barely left the room during the few breaks that the president of the court has enabled. He has remained almost always impassive and has changed position practically only to drink water, from a plastic bottle (more than one, depending on the session). The exit, each day, from the courthouse has been covered in the same shades of apparent serenity. Zaplana has maintained his composure. And he has been concerned about the image that the Prosecutor’s Office has drawn, “an image and idea of a criminal mind that uses and abuses his personal relationships,” according to what he reproached him for. In the last speaking turn, the former minister said he had not committed any illegality but he spent much more time talking about his friends, his teams, the honor of having been able to dedicate himself to politics and showing his discomfort at having been scrutinized, even by investigating their personal agendas.
The days in three acts
The three acts (arrival, session and departure) that Eduardo Zaplana’s days have consisted of for weeks have, however, had moments in which his poise has waned.
The day he was going to be interrogated, the for years all-powerful Zaplana arrived surrounded by a cloud of television cameras and journalists at the door of the court, which he entered without stopping. “Get in line, I’ve been there since early, get in line,” reproached a woman who later admitted not having recognized someone who was also a government spokesperson. With a disgruntled smile, the PP leader continued on his way.
The calmness with which he has usually left the judicial offices disappeared the day the Anti-Corruption prosecutor gave the final account of the accusation. For more than four hours, the representative of the public ministry, in charge of defending the rights of citizens and the general interest, recounted the judicial police’s version of Zaplana’s life after, supposedly, collecting bribes from the rigging of two awards, that of the ITV service stations and that of the wind farm. The prosecutor spoke, without hesitation, of the “investment machinery” that was deployed with the repatriation of money from illegal commissions and recalled that in the searches 19,000 euros in cash were seized from Zaplana and another 50,000 from his personal secretary: “ How much cash does this person need in their daily life? This is incompatible with the life of a real person,” he said. He compared him to a ferret when he recounted how he got to the house where he lived, through the garage and the forklift, presumably purchased with money from bribes although in the name of his childhood friend, Joaquín Barceló, who has confessed in court being a front man for the former regional president. And, without drinking a sip of water, the prosecutor spoke to him, from less than ten meters away, about honesty and courage. Exactly, he reproached her for not having them. “We wanted him to testify first of all to see if, given that he has used so many people for his benefit, to see if he had the courage to assume his responsibility in this process, since he has so many friends…. but he has not done so. . (…) Given that he has taken advantage of all the money and that he has employed so many people, let’s see if he had the honesty before a court to recognize his participation,” the prosecutor said. That day, Zaplana left the court with a different face, more serious and somewhat distraught.
Between entrances and exits, in the room where the trial was held, there have been moments of tension. When he was interrogated, the former Valencian president argued that the reason why he was present in many negotiations and meetings in which he discussed and decided about bribe money was because of his large circle of friends. Friends who asked him for advice. Friends for whom he acted as a mediator before companies, banks or fund managers. “I have made thousands of these efforts,” he told the prosecutor, who believes that what he did was use his friends to erase his trail of accounts and companies. Some of those friends have abandoned him. In addition to the self-confessed figurehead, 47 years of friendship had until now united Zaplana with his right-hand man between 1995 and 2002, Juan Francisco García. Several empty seats and a confession have now separated them. García has admitted that he rigged one of the contests to benefit the companies of the general director of the Police, Juan Cotino, and that he received payment for it, as the successful bidders, the nephews of the now deceased Cotino, have also admitted. García has confessed in court on three occasions. After the second, and given the reinforcement of the accusations against him, Eduardo Zaplana asked to address the magistrates again to prove his innocence and even raised his voice when trying to argue that the proof that he did not receive illegal commissions It was that he got along badly with Cotinus. “He was public and notorious. “We got along terribly,” he maintained firmly.
What affects the most is what happens closest. So you don’t miss anything, subscribe.
Subscribe
The validity of the confession
García’s testimony has earned him a reduction in the prison request made by the prosecution, a legal and even common strategy that, however, was impetuously censored by Zaplana’s lawyer who spoke of clandestinity. Both García’s defense and the accused himself denied this concealment in an equally hurtful way: “My client made a mistake by accepting instructions and money that did not belong to him. When one is wrong the honorable thing is to admit it. And to think that it is more honorable to confront the Prosecutor’s Office than to reach an agreement, I cannot agree,” said the lawyer with special emphasis on the word “honorable,” which is the official treatment given to regional presidents. García himself, in his turn to have the last word, revealed that he had gone to his former boss’s house to tell him that he was going to confess and advise him to do the same: “I am not going to literally quote his answer,” García said and kept the mystery until where Zaplana can worry about his image.
Subscribe to continue reading
Read without limits
_
#Zaplana #sentencing #image #honorability