The court of the National Court that judged the separate piece of the ‘Gürtel case’ on the minor contracts of the plot with the Generalitat Valenciana has acquitted former president Francisco Camps. This is the last ‘Gürtel’ legal case that the former popular president faced after the acquittal in the suit case.
The Anti-Corruption Prosecutor’s Office has already reduced the sentence request for Camps: from the two and a half years in prison that it initially requested to one year for the alleged crimes of influence peddling in competition with administrative prevarication, in addition to disqualification from passive suffrage.
The sentence of the second section of the Criminal Chamber of the AN condemns Francisco Correa, Pablo Crespo and Álvaro Pérez ‘El Bigotes’, having agreed to the sentences they agreed with the accusations of up to two years and three months in prison for crimes of administrative prevarication, falsification of commercial documents and embezzlement of public funds.
On the other hand, the ruling absolves former councilors Alicia de Miguel, Manuel Cervera and Luis Rosado and several officials of the Camps Government, such as Joaquín Fernando Tomás Font de Mora, Mary Patricia Callaghan Pitlik, María Auxiliadora Hernández Miñana, David Francisco Serra Cervera, Rafael Peset Pérez, María de la Paz Aviñó Primo, Inmaculada García Pardo, Paula de Cubas Carrasco, José Manuel Vidal and Aránzazu Vallés Testera.
In relation to the accusation against Francisco Camps for his participation in the Fitur hiring, the ruling states that “there is no evidence or indication of any order, suggestion or interference by Mr. Camps in said hiring, but what’s more, there is no witness, written or any communication between the two in said period, which removes any evidence or indication with criminal significance.” The ruling highlights that there was no indication from Camps to Dora Ibars, general director, who was also absolved of the accusations.
The ruling also resolves on the scope of Álvaro Pérez’s relations with Camps and concludes that “beyond the opinion of third parties and the few wiretaps between the two, during Christmas, and that Camps Ortiz himself went to celebration events of Mr. Pérez, it cannot be deduced at all that Mr. Camps was responsible for all of Mr. Pérez’s acts or that he favored Mr. Pérez’s activities within the field of public procurement.”
The speaker of the ruling, Judge José Antonio Mora, concludes that the senior officials “were not responsible, nor did they have control over the various contracts awarded to the companies of the Correa group, especially to Orange Market.”
The ruling condemns several workers of the Gürtel network: Cándido Herrero to eight years in prison for the crimes of influence peddling in media competition with a crime of continued administrative prevarication, falsification of commercial documents and embezzlement of public funds, and Mónica Magariños and Felisa Isabel Jordán (both sentenced to one year and 10 and a half months in prison).
He also condemns former director general Silvia Caballé Almela to special disqualification from employment or public office (two and a half years), and the chief of staff of former councilor Alicia de Miguel, Enrique Navarro Alejandro (three years).
The former manager of the Luz de las Imagens Foundation, María del Carmen Díaz Quintero, has been sentenced to 18 months in prison for a continued crime of falsification of a commercial document. For its part, the sentence also condemns Vicente Pablo Farnós de los Santos, former executive director of Proyecto Cultural Castellón, to one year in prison and seven years of special disqualification for prevarication and embezzlement.
Enrique José Port Bargués, former head of the technical office of the Valencian Industrial Security and Promotion Society (Sepiva), has been sentenced to 10 months in prison and two and a half years of disqualification for the crimes of falsification of official documents and administrative prevarication.
The oral trial lasted nine months, including several interruptions. The AN has taken almost seven months to issue the ruling. Three of the ringleaders of the plot—Álvaro Pérez ‘El Bigotes, Francisco Correa and Pablo Crespo—reached agreements in accordance with Anticorruption to recognize the facts and reduce the sentence.
Source: www.eldiario.es
