• Precautionary measure: The Prosecutor's Office asks that four of those convicted already enter prison: Guerrero, Fernández, Viera and Márquez
  • Vista.Javier Guerrero before the supposed risk of escape: "Where am I going to go?"
  • Sentence: Six years in jail for José Antonio Griñán and nine years of disqualification for Chaves

Former Employment Advisors Antonio Fernández and José Antonio Viera and former Employment Directors of the Andalusian Government Javier Guerrero and Juan Márquez will remain free as long as the sentence that condemned them by the EREs is not final.

The court has decided this Friday to maintain the situation of freedom of the four and to reject the request of the Anti-Corruption Prosecutor to imprison them immediately .

The magistrates do not agree with the prosecutors that there is a risk of escape and conclude that nothing suggests that they can flee Justice.

The Prosecutor requested at the hearing held on Thursday the immediate imprisonment of the four convicted with the argument that, after the sentence that was known on the 28th, the risk of escape has increased significantly, to which he added that two of them, Guerrero and Márquez, have another pending sentence, this time for the Umax case.

The defenses agreed to reject that argument and emphasized that not only is there no risk of escape, but that they have maintained a collaborative attitude towards justice since the beginning of the investigation. And to this we must add, they pointed out before the court, that the income currently received by the four ranges between 400 and 700 euros per month under the embargoes that weigh on their assets, which together with family roots makes it unthinkable, they added, that possibility of escape.

The Public Ministry was not in favor of waiting for the ruling of the High Court, so he asked last week, under article 505 of the Criminal Procedure Act, to hold a hearing - which was held this Thursday - to decide whether four former senior officials of the PSOE who held the highest responsibilities in the Ministry of Employment expected or not that the sentence is signed behind bars.

Fernández and Guerrero were already sent to prison after being arrested during the instruction directed by Judge Mercedes Alaya. Guerrero was from March to October 2012 and from March to June 2013 and Fernández from April to August 2012.

On them, in addition, the greater penalty of all those that the court presided by Juan Antonio Calle has imposed on the 19 former high positions of the Board finally condemned.

Both Fernández and Guerrero have been sentenced to seven years and eleven months in jail, while Viera and Márquez have been sentenced to seven years and one day.

The sentence, which was known ten days ago, imposes more jail sentences, among others on the former president of the Junta de Andalucía José Antonio Griñán, but for them the Public Ministry did not request the measure of imprisonment.

Together with Griñán, the ERE court sent former Innovation Minister Francisco Vallejo to prison, which he imposed seven years and one day; to the former Minister of Finance, Carmen Martínez Aguayo, sentenced to six years and two days in prison; the former Deputy Minister of Employment, Agustín Barberá, seven years and one day; the former Deputy Minister of Innovation, Jesús María Rodríguez, six years and two days away; and the former director general of the IDEA agency Miguel Ángel Serrano, to whom the magistrates imposed a penalty of six years, six months and one day of deprivation of liberty. Nor did the Public Ministry request immediate imprisonment for any of them.

According to the criteria of The Trust Project

Know more

  • Andalusia
  • Seville
  • ERE case
  • ERE statement
  • Corruption
  • PSOE
  • Manuel Chaves
  • José Antonio Griñán

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