The court investigates the "close link with the PSC" of corruption in the municipalities of Hospitalet and Cornellà

• Courts Freedom with charges for those arrested in an operation for embezzling public contracts in Cornellà

The socialist leaders who have been governing the municipalities of

de Llobregat for decades have run into a common headache: the Consell Esportiu de l'Hospitalet.

The agreements of the two councils with this non-profit organization that has managed school sports in Hospitalet are under the scrutiny of justice after the Unit for Economic and Financial Crimes (UDEF) of the

investigates "a plot of corruption" in which directors of the Consell and public employees of the Hospitalet City Council would be implicated.

The plot has spread to the City Council of Cornellà since the agents are inquiring about a contract between this municipality and the

.

However, the agents suspect that the alleged beneficiary of this possible corruption would be the PSC in Hospitalet.

It all begins with an investigation by Hospitalet de Llobregat Investigating Court number 2 into "members of the board of directors of the Consell Esportiu de l'Hospitalet who would form part of said body due to their status as members of the

" and who "They would have disposed of the funds of said body for profit and improperly and fraudulently, falsifying or altering the documentation of the entity to hide the facts and give it the appearance of legality."

For this they had the "collusion" of the director of the Consell.

"There are indications that those investigated could have been using money from the entity for purposes unrelated to it and without there being control or supervision by the competent bodies for it, as well as the presentation of non-real annual accounts with the purpose of obtain subsidies are that the situation is later regularized, despite acknowledging that the accounts were not real and that they had been presented for that purpose," says the

that commissioned the investigation to the UDEF.

The investigation proves that the funds of the entity, which receives some 300,000 public euros between grants and contracts, were used to pay "consumer objects" of those investigated, such as trips, books, accounts in bars and restaurants and even fines of a councilor of Hospitalet who resigned after his accusation.

In addition, the court considers that there was an alleged lack of control of the Consell accounts and that is why one of those investigated is the mayor of Hospitalet,

, who a few days ago requested the file of the procedure against her alluding that she acted against these irregularities when one of the councillors, J

socialist connection

Of the twenty people investigated in this procedure in Hospitalet, about 15 are linked to the PSC.

In this sense, the agents point out "a link has been found that connects both parties (the Consell Esportiu and the City Council) with the composition of its Board of Directors, since this reflects a clear control of this body by people who are linked to the PSC, party political party owned by the government of the City Council of L'Hospitalet de Llobregat" and notes that in the 2019 directive ten of its twelve members were militants or had a clear socialist affiliation.

For this reason, the researchers point to this "close link with the PSC" of the Consell, epicenter of the alleged corruption in the municipalities of Hospitalet and Cornellà, despite the fact that there are still no indications of irregular financing.

The UDEF identifies each year a "major politicization" of the members of the entity and even in a report they speak of "excess of politicians in the private non-profit entity."

Thus, the investigators point to the witness statement of a Consell employee who assured that the directors urged her to join the PSC when she started working in 2009 and that they made her go along with other members of the entity to party events, such as one of Alfredo Pérez Rubalcaba in Hospitalet or another of the mayor in 2010 to "make a bundle".

He also indicated that "everything was aimed at getting PSC prescribers" and that is why payments were made, some "excessive", to attend events, as well as invitations to dinners and breakfasts.

In this sense, he pointed out one of 2019 in a sports center in Gornal, in Hospitalet, with the assistance of Nuria Marín in addition to other positions of the City Council and the Consell, and in which the mayor made a brief intervention on the "next elections".

The 405 euros that the food cost for 30 people was paid by the Consell.

Also Cornellà

The National Police questions the independence of the CELH from the City Council, given that the entity shares a building with the City Council's Sports Area and its board of directors is made up, in part, of the same municipal personnel who must review the subsidy, and warns about the partisan linkage of the entity's directive with the PSC.

In the reports, the researchers see irregularities in the subsidy files that the Consell delivers to the City Council, where they present income figures that are much lower than those actually obtained, and affirm that these anomalies could be detected "with very simple arithmetic checks."

"However, it is that same lack of control, found in the successive stages of processing the file, which allows it to be overlooked," they conclude.

Enric Fontcuberta EFE

The court is also investigating the double or even triple charge of some training courses for which it received money from the subsidy or if the Consell Esportiu hid between 180,000 and 200,000 euros per year that it entered with the summer camps in the budgets presented to receive grants.

Precisely there is another irregular amount that has given rise to an investigation by the Court of Instruction 4 of Cornellà, which this week ordered 11 arrests, including that of the deputy mayor of the City Council of this town, for a possible crime in an arbitration contract that the Consell Esportiu formalized in 2018 with the City Council of Cornellà de Llobregat and for which a loan and a guarantee were requested.

In this way, an alleged falsehood is investigated in a minute of the board of directors of the Consell to be able to formalize the authorizations and powers of attorney necessary for someone to go before a notary public and constitute a guarantee that had to be presented at the Cornellà Town Hall in order to take carry out this arbitration agreement.

In addition, the contracting of a credit policy in favor of the Consell Esportiu is also under scrutiny.

The Police have taken numerous documentation from Cornellà this week to examine these contracts.

vox accuses

The president of Vox Barcelona and spokesperson for the group in Parliament, Joan Garriga, announced that the formation will ask to appear as a popular accusation in the courts of Hospitalet and Cornellà in the case opened for irregularities in the Consell Esportiu Comarcal del Baix Llobregat.

"Socialism roams freely, plunders the pockets of citizens and abandons the workers."

Garriga said, adding that the PSC is "plundering the Catalans by agreeing with the separatists and with their usual corruption."

On the other hand, the deputy secretary of the PSC and mayor of Sant Boi de Llobregat (Barcelona), Lluïsa Moret, stressed that her party "fully trusts" the good management of the municipalities and has wanted the facts to be clarified.

She also stressed that the municipal governments "are collaborating very clearly and without any doubt" with the Justice.

The spokeswoman for the PSC in Parliament, Alícia Romero, also said on Ràdio 4 that her party hopes that the accusation against the mayor of Hospitalet, Núria Marín (PSC), "comes to nothing".

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