He alleges that the crime of electoral fraud imputed to him for 2011 has prescribed
MADRID, 27 Oct. (EUROPA PRESS) –
The former manager of the Madrid PP Beltrán Gutiérrez, whom the judge of the National High Court investigating the alleged existence of a ‘b box’ in the Madrid PP with which the 2007, 2008 and 2011 elections would have been financed as alleged ‘number two’ of the plot, has appealed his prosecution for this separate piece of ‘Púnica’ arguing that the crimes attributed to him have prescribed.
In a letter, to which Europa Press has had access, Gutiérrez combats the order issued on October 14 by the head of the Central Court of Instruction Number 6, Manuel García Castellón, where he was prosecuted for an alleged crime of electoral fraud associated with the municipal elections of 2011 for being the electoral administrator of said campaign, at the same time that he declared the alleged illegalities of 2007 and 2008 prescribed.
Gutiérrez now wields that the alleged crimes of 2011 would also have expired. To do this, he clings to the reasoning made by the instructor himself, who established that the alleged irregularities in that electoral campaign are prescribed for “all the people who have been declared judicially investigated after September 24, 2016.”
The former ‘popular’ leader alleges that, although García Castellón identifies his appearance as an investigator on February 11, 2016 as a key date, “this was not the case, being his first accusation and judicial declaration for the possible criminal acts related to the elections of the year 2011 on March 13, 2017”.
The defense argues that in 2016 his client was called to testify for a crime of money laundering, not for the electoral fraud linked to the 2011 municipal elections, for which he indicates that he was not charged until the following year.
Gutiérrez thus joins the appeals filed against said order. The alleged leader of the ‘Púnica’, Francisco Granados, also challenged his prosecution. According to him, his role as campaign manager in said votes was “merely testimonial”, for which he believes that he should be exonerated like his superiors, former presidents Esperanza Aguirre and Ignacio González.
Granados discharged the responsibility on Gutiérrez by warning that the judge would be confusing the functions of the campaign director with those of the electoral administrator, “who is the one who effectively manages everything that could be related to economic aspects” of the elections.
“Even the campaign manager is unable to discredit, control and contradict the electoral administrator, with the ordinary party bodies being solely and exclusively those that can protect Mr. Beltrán’s role as appointed administrator,” he explained.
The popular accusation of the PSOE, for its part, appealed García Castellón’s decision to file the case for Aguirre and others, assuring that the investigation has revealed the existence of “a concerted plan” since his arrival at the Madrid Presidency that he sought ” get extraordinary funding” for the regional PP.
