The Supreme Court ruling underpins the investigation of the 'Bárcenas papers'

The judgment of the Supreme Court made public this Wednesday, in which it resolves the appeals to the judgment of the National Court on the so-called first stage of the Gürtel case (1999-2005), considers that this court had in its 2018 ruling “with evidence valid and sufficient charge ”to conclude that there was opaque accounting in the PP under the control of its former treasurer Luis Bárcenas, who collected the movements of these funds in the handwritten annotations known as the Bárcenas papers.

The Supreme Court ruling concludes that this "valid and sufficient" evidence consisted of documents, statements of witnesses and defendants, and expert reports, which allowed us to both conclude that box b existed and to consider proven that Bárcenas "held full capacity control and availability ”of that money.

The judgment of the high court also supports the conclusion that the ex-treasurer appropriated funds from what he himself called "off-the-books accounting" for his own benefit, including the diversion of 149,600 euros to acquire shares of the digital newspaper Libertad Digital that appear collected in your handwritten accounting notes.

The Supreme Court believes “it is indifferent that the PP has renounced any claim [on the amounts withheld by Bárcenas from box b] (even because it states that it is not known to have suffered any damage) and even the legal or illegal origin of these amounts ”.

For the high court, "what is relevant is that the act of seizure took place" and that the money that Bárcenas received "as a mere custodian and that he made his was not

[nobody's thing] and, therefore, he incurred the responsibility criminal that the accusations are demanding ”, emphasize the magistrates.

The judgment of the National Court of May 2018 was the first judicial ruling that considered Bárcenas' papers fully true and, therefore, the existence of a box b that was nourished by illegal donations from businessmen and with which payments were made in cash to their leaders.

Then, the court admitted that this opaque accounting - revealed by EL PAÍS on January 31, 2013 - was outside the scope of the process, despite which it devoted several paragraphs in the ruling to certify its existence in order to support part of the of the accusations against Bárcenas and his wife, Rosalía Iglesias, as the Supreme Court does now.

The National Court affected the “illicit origin” of that money when considering that “the contributions to box b are not simple donations made altruistically by some businessmen, but rather have a marked finalist character insofar as it is a way of paying favors, or the compensation, for irregular awarding of contracts ”.

The Supreme Court does not pronounce on it, but its ruling does underpin the investigation that the judge of the National Court José de la Mata still keeps open on the Barcenas papers when confirming the conviction of the former treasurer for appropriating part of them.

From this piece, the National Court has already set for February 8, 2021, the start of the trial for the alleged payment of the works of the reform of the national headquarters of the party, in Genova street in Madrid, with money from the box B of PP.

For these events, Bárcenas (who will face a prosecutorial request for 5 years in prison) and the former party manager Cristóbal Páez (18 months in prison), as well as three Unifica officials (3 years in prison) will sit on the defendants' bench. jail for each), company that was in charge of the reform.

In addition, there is another part of the piece still in the judicial investigation phase - which should be concluded on July 29 of next year - in which the direct relationship between donations from businessmen reflected in the papers of Bárcenas and the award of public contracts.

The investigations were reactivated after new indications appeared in other causes, such as the

, in which the illegal espionage of Bárcenas is investigated in the stage of Jorge Fernández Díaz at the head of the Ministry of the Interior to steal compromising documents for the PP and its leaders .

This part of the investigation recently received a boost after two reports from the Economic and Fiscal Crime Unit (UDEF) of the National Police were added to the summary, in which, for the first time, the alleged existence of a bribery crime was documented.

This was a line of investigation that was discarded in 2014 due to the lack of evidence that demonstrated the relationship between payments to the party and the awards made by administrations governed by the PP.