The trial for the alleged illicit origin of Rodrigo Rato’s fortune has been heard for sentencing this Friday at the Provincial Court of Madrid. The former managing director of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and vice president of the Government with José María Aznar (PP) has used his right to the last word to point out the ministers of Finance and Justice of the Executive of Mariano Rajoy Cristóbal Montoro and Rafael Catalá as those responsible for the case in which he faces a sentence of more than sixty years in prison for allegedly defrauding more than 8.5 million euros and for the alleged bribes he collected when he was president of Bankia.
Before the court, Rato has read several emails from Montoro’s former chief of staff, Felipe Martínez Rico, which would demonstrate that months before the Customs agents searched his home and professional office on April 16, 2015, all of them They were aware of the actions of the Tax Agency. In this sense, he has mentioned the investigation opened in a court in Tarragona against Equipo Economico, the office of former Minister Montoro, for alleged influence peddling with the Tax Agency for the benefit of his clients.
“We are here because on January 21, 2015, the chief of staff of the Minister of Finance Cristóbal Montoro, Mr. Felipe Martínez Rico, wrote the following email to Montoro: “Santiago [entonces director de la Agencia Tributaria] wants to discuss Rato’s tax situation with you. He now has indications that he is proceeding to seize assets. He will give you prepared information, but it is possible that the situation results in the need for entry and registration. You can comment on it on Thursday after the steering committee or after the council of ministers,” he read in court. That email and others that Rato has alluded to were revealed by El Periódico de España.
Days later, in another email dated February 9, 2015, Martínez Rico would have indicated to Montoro that Rato “did present Declaration 720 [de bienes procedentes del extranjero]” and that they had asked the Tax Agency for “the information” to see if there was any “errata” regarding the one that they had sent them days before and thus be able to correct it.
Another of the communications to which you have alluded took place on April 16 [cuando fue detenido] Montoro’s chief of staff wrote in another email that these events were “good” for them to “demonstrate that the tax amnesty has served as a decoy for the Tax Agency to focus investigations of tax fraud and that the subsequent investigation may even derive accusation for tax crime.” At another point in his intervention, he also referred to some statements that the former Catalá minister made on April 4, 2015 in which he assured that Rato had taken advantage of the tax amnesty. “A secret fact that only the Minister of Finance could know,” Rato asserted.
In a similar line to that maintained throughout the trial, the former banker has also accused prosecutor Elena Lorente of presenting “artificially complex” facts against him as the basis for an “inadmissible” accusation. And he has stated that his defense has provided “many and very consistent arguments” that have revealed what he has defined as a “house of cards manufactured by the Prosecutor’s Office and the State Attorney’s Office.”
Source: www.eldiario.es
