The Anti-Corruption Prosecutor’s Office has maintained in its conclusions all the crimes it accuses former Minister Rodrigo Rato and requests 63 years in prison for him and a fine of 42.44 million euros. It also raises the amount of certain installments that are allegedly fraudulent, such as that of 2008.
This is stated in the final conclusions written by prosecutor Elena Lorente, to which Europa Press has had access, in which she accuses the former managing director of the International Monetary Fund of 11 crimes against the Public Treasury – from 2005 to 2015 – , money laundering and corruption between individuals.
It should be remembered that Anti-Corruption at the beginning of the trial that was held in the Provincial Court of Madrid for the allegedly illicit increase in his assets indicated that he had defrauded the treasury of more than 8.5 million.
Sources from the former minister’s defense describe the Prosecutor’s Office’s position as “extreme” and understand that this is the case because if it does not move forward with the accusation “the castle will collapse.”
Furthermore, in statements to the media at the end of the hearing, the former minister has referred to the case opened in a court in Tarragona to investigate the office founded by the former Minister of Finance Cristóbal Montoro, Economic Team, and has indicated that the position of the Chief Anti-Corruption Prosecutor, Alejandro Luzón, to “oppose” certain investigations is “scandalous.” “There is inexplicable resistance,” he has gone so far as to say and then point out that if they let him, he will try to appear in that case.
As published by ‘El Periódico de España’, the Investigative Court Number 2 of Tarragona is investigating whether the consulting firm Equipo Economico used its “influences” among “senior officials and officials of the Ministry of Finance” for the benefit of its clients.
Within the framework of the case, there is an email from 2015 in which Montoro’s then chief of staff in the Ministry “reports that the head of the Tax Agency, Santiago Menéndez, wanted to speak with him about the ‘fiscal situation of Rato ‘”, according to the information published this Friday by the digital.
On this point, Rato has limited himself to pointing out: “The only thing I would like is for the Anti-Corruption Prosecutor’s Office to not try to prevent this investigation.” It is worth remembering that the case being followed in the Tarragona court has sparked debate within this Special Prosecutor’s Office. The prosecutor in charge of the procedure invoked article 27 of the Organic Statute when she disagreed with the criteria of her boss, Alejandro Luzón, on the steps to follow in this investigation. Finally, the Board of Anti-Corruption Prosecutors endorsed the criteria of its ‘number one’.
THE DOCUMENTARY EVIDENCE
This Friday, in the Rato trial, the documentary evidence was also aired. The prosecutor has requested that the judicial statements of two of the defendants who died during the investigation of the case, Fabrizio Bini and Miguel Ángel Furones, be read. She has also requested the incorporation into the proceedings of the translation of a web page related to tax residences of people living in the United States.
Rato’s defense has opposed this reading of the statements since they were made under summary secrecy and without equality of arms. He has also refused to include the translation of that web page since he understands that to introduce Foreign Law, if it were relevant to resolve any legal issue of this procedure, “it should have been done through the corresponding legal expert signed by two foreign experts”.
The court, after a long deliberation, has not considered it pertinent to incorporate the document that the Public Ministry intended and has admitted that the statements of the deceased defendants should be read because the jurisprudence understands that they were produced with the due contradiction. –presence of the defenses of those investigated– and which is what was allowed at that time.
This Friday, the defenses have made their conclusions final, requesting the free acquittal of the defendants. The defense of lawyer Domingo Plazas has expressly requested that it be taken into account that due to the years of processing of the procedure – “9 years and 10 days” – the highly qualified mitigating circumstance of undue delays be taken into account and has requested that the in costs to the State Attorney’s Office.
The sessions will resume on May 6 with the presentation of the reports. After them will come the turn of the last word, at which point, according to legal sources, Rato will address the court again.
