Anti-corruption demands sentences of more than 20 years in prison for the accused and a fine of 3 million euros for the PdeCAT
The judge of the National Court (AN) Santiago Pedraz has sent to trial the political formation PdeCAT, its predecessor, Convergencia Democrática de Cataluña (CDC), and its ex-treasurers Germà Gordó, Daniel Osácar and Andreu Viloca for the so-called ‘case 3 %’, the structure put in motion supposedly to finance the party illegally through public works tenders.
In an order from this same Tuesday, to which Europa Press has had access, the head of the Central Court of Instruction Number 5 agrees to open an oral trial for a total of 30 individuals, including politicians, businessmen and officials from different administrations and public institutions of Catalonia.
Similarly, it opens a trial regarding 16 legal entities, while decreeing the partial provisional file for Juan Antonio Carpintero, president of the Grupo Ortiz construction company.
Pedraz declares the Criminal Chamber of the AN as the competent body to prosecute these facts and gives the defendants’ defense attorneys a period of three months to present their defense briefs.
In the order to open the oral trial, the investigating judge collects the indictments from both the Anti-Corruption Prosecutor’s Office and the city councils of Barcelona and Sant Cugat del Vallés.
As announced last week, the Public Prosecutor considers that the facts constitute the crimes of criminal organization, fraud against public administrations, corruption between individuals, influence peddling, bribery, prevarication and money laundering.
The Anti-Corruption Prosecutor’s Office has requested sentences of more than 20 years in prison for the accused and a fine of 3 million euros for the PdeCAT for the “strategy for illicit financing” that would have been carried out “systematically” over the years in its political predecessor, the defunct CDC, in the framework of the ‘case of the 3%’.
In his brief, the prosecutor José Grinda accuses 30 individuals and 14 legal entities, in addition to two political formations, requesting a sentence of 21 years and 4 months in prison for the former CDC treasurer Andreu Viloca and 18 years and 10 months for the person also responsible for the accounts of the Germá Gordó formation, who was also Minister of Justice of the Government with Artur Mas.
In addition, it asks for 1 year and a half in prison replaced by work for the benefit of the community for the former head of finances for the CDC and former treasurer of the Daniel Osácar foundations; 1 year in prison and another year of work for the benefit of the community for the former financial manager of the ‘CDC’ Francesc Xavier Sánchez; 10 years in prison for the economic and financial head of the CDC Anna Dolors, and 14 years for the manager and coordinator of the Economic Area of ??the CDC Carles del Pozo.
Anticorruption asks to impose a fine of 3 million on the PDeCAT considering that, “far” from being “a new independent party” of Democratic Convergence, its birth is understood as “the mere transformation or change of appearance of the same reality, with the purpose to disconnect from the responsibilities that the previous political formation, CDC, could have incurred”.
POLITICAL INFLUENCE TO ACHIEVE AWARDS
The Public Ministry details in its indictment that in the period from 2008 to 2015 “senior CDC officials, in collusion with public officials and officials from different Administrations and public institutions of Catalonia, and with the different accused businessmen, launched a structure to finance this political party illegally and covertly”.
For the Prosecutor’s Office, the income that the CDC received from its foundations with this operation “signified a source of financing for the party that represented, in the period between the years 2008 and 2012, an average of 11.5% of the party’s private financing and 7.7% in the total funding” of training.
Under its hierarchical structure, the defendants attached to the CDC and with Gordó in charge “carried out control and monitoring of public works and service tenders offered by different administrations of the Catalan autonomous community, under the sphere of power” of the party, since outside in city councils, provincial councils, municipalities or dependent organizations of the Generalitat itself.
For the rest of the defendants, among whom are the businessmen to whom these acts are attributed, the Prosecutor’s Office requests sentences that range between 11 years in prison or sentences that can be replaced by a fine and work for the benefit of the community.
The Prosecutor’s brief comes two years after the then investigating judge, José de la Mata, issued in 2020 an order to pass to an abbreviated procedure that ended an investigation initiated in 2015 for irregular actions in Torredembarra (Tarragona) and that, as it grew, it was referred to the National High Court in 2018 due to its “serious repercussion” for the Spanish economy.
