Inma Lidón Valencia

Valencia

Updated Monday, February 12, 2024-13:52

  • Taula Rita Barberá's right-hand man assures that the PP received a "star donation" of 100,000 euros that helped with electoral financing in 2011

  • Taula The key witness who revealed the irregular financing of Rita Barberá's campaigns reverses his claim and exonerates Alfonso Grau

  • Taula The UCO confirms that they spent twelve times more from box B than declared in the 2007 and 2011 campaigns

Rita Barberá

's PP

went irregularly 'doped' to the 2007 and 2011 elections. It is the thesis that the

Anti-Corruption Prosecutor's Office insisted on in the report of conclusions of the trial that has former vice mayor

Alfonso Grau

, the former secretary,

sitting in the dock.

of the PP in the City Council

Mari Carmen García Fuster

, both right hands of the then mayor, and the former directors of the Valencia Tourism Foundation,

José Salinas

; and from the Center for Strategies and Development (CEyD),

Juan Eduardo Santón

.

"In the elections of 2007, 2011 and, to a lesser extent, 2015, the PP of Valencia committed

electoral fraud

because it increased its budget for the elections through

irregularly obtained money

," explained the Public Ministry before detailing the "four ways "through which the party obtained resources illicitly to pay the company that organized the campaigns. The first was through foundations and municipal entities, which commissioned work from this company, Laterne; the second through bribes that different companies, municipal contractors, made to a shell company domiciled in Belgium linked to Laterne; the third through cash receipts recorded in his accounting Ledger, and 500 euro bills that Vice Mayor Grau gave to his former advisor, Jesús Gordillo, so that she could pay them to the company.

"Every act of corruption represents a great ethical and moral reproach because it is a bankruptcy of society and, when politicians present themselves in elections as paradigms of transparency and commit fraud in the elections, the reproach is greater." The prosecutor assured, insisting that the PP, "both in the 2007 elections and in those of 2011 and 2015, put machinery into play to counteract the effect of the remaining political parties and

started with a fundamentally economic advantage

."

At the center of this practice, as a "cornerstone", the accusation places Alfonso Grau, for whom it requests nine years in prison, and Mª Carmen García Fuster. Both had control, according to the Prosecutor's Office, of box B, an account "without any control" where cash was deposited from donations, "which are illegal. A municipal group should not make electoral expenses, they should not handle money in effective," he warned.

"In that account it was García Fuster who was in charge, who was paid as an advisor to the City Council and paid in small corruption.

It was like Ali Baba's cave

, without control and subject to the will of the accused," he defended. However, the defense of the former secretary, carried out by José María Corbín, accused in Azud, insisted that the accusation of alleged money laundering is statute-barred, that she never received donations nor had contracting capacity and only carried out some decisions she made. the "campaign committee."

What to do with those funds and how to finance a campaign that in 2007 went from 150,000 euros budgeted to 2.6 million was the task of Alfonso Grau, "the strong man of the PP, who accumulated positions everywhere: deputy mayor, spokesman for the municipal group, vice mayor, president of various municipal entities. And that in the 2007 electoral campaign he is coordinator and signs the contract with the Laterne group, although he does not sign," he said.

The amount of that contract is 150,000 euros for some campaign events, "but if Laterne finally spends 2.6 million, someone had to put up that money," said the prosecutor, and its origin is in the money contributed by companies and of foundation funds.

In 2011, the practice was the same, except that the company Trasgos was chosen, "but Grau turned to the same companies" to obtain financing.