The UGT leadership and the union in Asturias condemned for fraud in public subsidies

The justice has just sentenced

to 2 years and 10 months in jail to the general secretary of UGT Asturias,

for three crimes of

.

In addition, you must pay 585,000 euros of fine.

Along with him, the former secretary of administration and the training secretary, who will have to pay in solidarity another 330,000 euros to the Principality, which was the one who granted the subsidies and who acted as a private prosecutor, for the damages caused.

The sentence speaks of a

of part of the public funds received." It considers it proven that in the subsidies for training courses received by the union between 2011 and 2012, part of that money was used for union expenses, including paying part of the salary of some workers, such as clerks or computer scientists, without Most of them had an idea that this was happening, as they recognized in the trial held last October. Workers that the sentence assures, had nothing to do with training.

Furthermore, according to the ruling, the union did not directly impart the training courses, but subcontracted these services, mostly to intermediary companies, although linked to it, such as the Institute for Training and Social Studies (IFES),

, to a lesser extent to the Astur Training Forum, but also to Fundación Metal and Fundación Laboral de la Construcción, as well as other independent private companies.

Companies that were sometimes paid, says the ruling,

, paying above the market price with which that money also reverted to the union. It happened, for example, when the course was held in classrooms owned by the UGT or given free of charge to the union by a City Council, which did not generate any cost for rent. These premises were rented by the training intermediary companies and this cost was shown to be subsidized. There was also an extra cost in the billing system, by hours of the premises and of the computer equipment, something that was not usual in the market.

In addition, three other people were convicted, responsible for the intermediary entities that made the diversion of public funds possible.

The

has also been convicted

for a crime of fraud.

You must pay a fine of 122,000 euros.

Also, you won't be able to get public grants or tax or security incentives for four years.

The prosecution in its final conclusions lowered the request for a sentence for the accused, which in the case of the former secretary general was initially 10 years in prison on understanding that some of the crimes, part of the subsidies granted, would have already prescribed.

The sentence is not final and there

against it

The current management of UGT-Asturias has always maintained the innocence of the accused and assured that there could be administrative errors in the processing of the subsidies, but a crime was never committed.

The complaint came from former union workers who learned that part of their salary was being charged to subsidies and from the former head of IFES who refused to "commit these irregularities" as he said in the trial.

His complaint led to an investigation by the UCO that ended with the arrest of the union's leadership in January 2017.

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