The 33 'links' of the PP with the Gürtel plot

Bárcenas during his testimony in a Gürtel plot trial, with Correa sitting behind. © Jaime Villanueva

The attempts of the PP to distance itself from the Gürtel are sterile just by reviewing the list of sentenced by the Supreme Court last Wednesday.

"It does not condemn any militant of the PP", has come to say Mariano Rajoy about a ruling that, however, not only condemns the party and one of its former ministers, Ana Mato, as civilians responsible for profiting from the plot, but also It imposes prison sentences on 15 of its former high-ranking officials (two former treasurers, a former organization secretary, a former deputy, two former mayors and five former councilors, among others).

Unlinking the popular from the corrupt network is impossible.

This was nested in the heart of the training - it was the "nexus" of everything, the judges emphasize - and the data show this: the six ramifications of the investigation already tried leave 56 different people convicted (some in various cases): 33 of they were public officials of the PP, trusted personnel or relatives.

A figure that can still grow more.

According to the compilation made by EL PAÍS of Gürtel's summaries, 85 other people different from those already convicted are being processed in another half a dozen separate pieces (some, also, in more than one) pending trial and sentence in the National Court .

Among them, stands out Francisco Camps, former president of the Generalitat Valenciana and one of the most powerful politicians within the party just a decade ago.

Another of those links that Pablo Casado's PP tries to blur.

But it seems complicated.

"The PP benefited from the criminal conduct", summarized the magistrate José De la Mata in one of those cases still to be clarified in the courts, where he added that "political leaders [of the training] sought irregular contracts" with the network of Francisco Correa companies.

An ordeal that is not over yet.

These are the pieces that remain to be judged.

Bárcenas papers.

In the PP they have the date of February 8, 2021 well marked on the calendar. That day, in less than four months, a new stop is planned on their way of the cross by Gürtel: the oral hearing begins for the piece on the papers of Bárcenas, published by EL PAÍS in 2013 and which revealed the parallel accounting that worked within the training for two decades.

In this case, the former treasurer Luis Bárcenas, the former popular manager Cristóbal Páez;

and three managers from Unifica, the company that was in charge of the renovation of the Genova street headquarters.

The PP, in addition, will return to the bench as a subsidiary civil responsible in a case where another of its former treasurers, Álvaro Lapuerta, who died in 2018, was also prosecuted.

This part of the investigation comes thinned out at the trial, since it was not possible to connect the donations of the businessmen with the public works contracts - although this route on the crime of bribery, which is still active in instruction, has been retaken in the recent months thanks to new discoveries.

Even so, the political dimension of the oral hearing is unquestionable: it will not only deal with box b of the PP, but also highly relevant personalities are called to testify as witnesses: such as former presidents José María Aznar and Mariano Rajoy;

and former ministers Rodrigo Rato, José María Michavila and Federico Trillo.

The Pope's visit.

The defendants in the trial for the diversion of public funds in the organization of Benedict XVI's visit to Valencia in 2006, which began in March of this year and ended in July after being suspended due to the coronavirus, are still waiting for the National Court communicates its sentence.

23 people sat on the bench.

The most prominent figure was Juan Cotino, former president of the Valencian Courts, counselor of Camps and general director of the National Police with Aznar - his nephew Vicente Cotino was already condemned in the piece on the Valencian branch of Gürtel.

The former popular leader came to testify at the hearing and disassociated himself from the plot, but died from Covid-19 before hearing the ruling of the court, which must also decide whether to accept the request of the Anti-Corruption Prosecutor's Office to investigate Camps for lying in court when he was a witness.

Valencia-Camps.

After reopening the investigation after several Gürtel leaders pointed it out, Judge De la Mata managed to surround Camps and process him for the contracts that the Valencian Generalitat awarded Orange Market, one of Correa's companies, for the Fitur tourism fair 2009. Through a forceful order, the magistrate concluded that there is an "arsenal of very consistent evidence" against him.

The Prosecutor's Office asks him for two and a half years in prison for fraud and prevarication.

For this part of the investigations, another 27 people are also processed: among them, three

-

of the PP Government.

Boadilla.

2021 will certainly not be a quiet year for Casado.

In September the trial will start for another of Gürtel's pieces where the party is accused as a subsidiary civil liable.

The Court sent 27 people to the bench for the alleged bribes that the plot delivered for almost a decade to the authorities of Boadilla del Monte (Madrid) to obtain awards in exchange.

Correa's network "came in practice to direct all public procurement" in the municipality, concluded the investigating judge in a case directed against, among others, the former popular mayor of the town, Arturo González Panero, alias

.

Arganda.

This piece covers the activity of the plot from 1998 to 2009 in this Madrid city.

Among other issues, it deals with the considered biggest hit of the Gürtel network, which together with the then councilor of this Madrid city, Ginés López, among others, supposedly distributed 25 million euros for the illegal sale of municipal plots after fixing the public tender .

There are 21 defendants in total: among them, a deputy from Congress and another from the Assembly.

Also Fernando Martín, builder and former president of Real Madrid.

Whitening.

Only seven months ago - 12 years after the investigation began - the judge managed to close the last piece of Gürtel pending investigation.

There are 21 prosecuted for participating in the design of the corporate structure created to avoid payments to the Treasury and launder the money derived, in part, from the activity linked to the PP.

Kitchen, the derivative of Gürtel.

On September 16, 2011, the first sentence related to Gürtel was issued: the former vice president of the Valencian Government, Víctor Campos, and the former head of the Tourism Cabinet, Rafael Betoret, were convicted of a crime of improper bribery for receiving gifts from the plot in the one baptized as the cause of the suits, which Francisco Camps would later manage to avoid.

Since then, the list of sentenced persons has not stopped growing after judging other five ramifications: known as Época I, Aena, Fitur, Jerez and Valencian electoral campaigns.

To these will be added another half a dozen pieces still to be judged and a new

of Gürtel investigated by the National Court: Operation Kitchen, the parapolice macro-drama supposedly concocted at the top of the Ministry of the Interior after the publication of Bárcenas' papers and which had for objective to snatch compromising documentation from the ex-treasurer for senior positions in the PP.

There is already a former minister accused, Jorge Fernánez Díaz, and a former secretary of state, Francisco Martínez.

Anti-corruption has also asked to impute María Dolores de Cospedal.