The former president of Sacyr sued the former PP treasurer for linking him to the ‘Bárcenas papers’
MADRID, 24 Oct. (EUROPA PRESS) –
The Supreme Court has confirmed that the former treasurer of the PP Luis Bárcenas must compensate the former president of Sacyr Vallehermoso Luis del Rivero with 60,000 euros for illegitimate interference in his right to honor.
The magistrates of the High Court have inadmissible the appeal that Bárcenas presented “due to a manifest lack of foundation”. Thus, they have ratified the sentence of the Provincial Court of Madrid that condemned him for having linked Del Rivero with the ‘Bárcenas papers’ without any evidence.
In a car, to which Europa Press has had access, the Civil Chamber has stressed that although the former leader of the PP “formally reproaches the sentence” what he “materially” does is “disagree with the probative assessment” of the resolution, something that –as the court has underlined– “is not admissible”.
The case has reached the Supreme Court after the businessman filed a lawsuit, within the framework of the ‘Gürtel case’ –between 2004 and 2011–, against the former treasurer of the PP for making “different demonstrations” and presenting “documents” to link him with the so-called ‘Bárcenas papers’.
Del Rivero assured that Bárcenas was not telling the truth, “not only in the actions carried out before the jurisdictional body but also through demonstrations broadcast through national newspapers.”
According to the lawsuit, the former PP official said that the then president of Sacyr Vallerhermoso had made payments and donations to the party, based on an alleged hidden handwritten accounting. Del Rivero also accused Bárcenas of having “extrajudicially spilled” “repeated statements” to the press in which he implicated him in the alleged payment of an illegal commission for obtaining the concession of a garbage collection contract in Toledo.
Likewise, the businessman stressed that Bárcenas also told the media that he, as president of Sacyr, would have tried to exert pressure on the then president of the Government Mariano Rajoy and the then president of the Xunta de Galicia Alberto Núñez Feijóo to obtain awards.
Del Rivero asked that the former treasurer of the PP be sentenced, for illegitimate interference in his right to honor, to publish the sentence in three national media and to pay 300,000 euros in damages.
Bárcenas denied having violated the businessman’s right to honor. He alleged that the alleged handwritten accounting of the PP that was published by a print media “was not delivered” by him, but by a lawyer and deputy of the formation. And as for Del Rivero’s supposed influences on Rajoy and Núñez Feijóo, he said that what the press had published was true.
Justice already agreed with Del Rivero in 2021 when considering that the acts committed by Bárcenas had involved an illegitimate interference with Del Rivero’s right to honor and sentenced the former treasurer of the PP to compensate the businessman with 60,000 euros; It also agreed that it was necessary for the media involved to publish the sentence.
On that occasion, the sentence stated that there was no evidence that Del Rivero made donations to the PP in exchange for favors or that he had traveled to Galicia to try to obtain an award.
Although Bárcenas filed an appeal, the Provincial Court of Madrid dismissed it and confirmed the resolution. The magistrates assured that the imputation of facts that Bárcenas made supposed “a vice or lack of morality that detracts from the consideration of others” and that, therefore, it represented “an interference in the right to honor when the requirement of truthfulness is lacking.”
Now, in a resolution for which magistrate Francisco Marín Castán has been a rapporteur, the Supreme Court has ratified the decision of the Madrid Provincial Court, for which Bárcenas must pay compensation to Del Rivero, since there is no recourse against him. decision of the High Court.
