Pope Benedict XVI, during his visit to Valencia in July 2006. On the right, Francisco Camps.EFE
No party has given as much work to the judges as the PP.
The Gürtel plot has cost magistrates and police hundreds of hours of work, which have resulted in more than 5,000 pages of convictions.
Twelve years of investigation have made it possible to draw a tree of corruption with 17 branches: 11 have already been tried - only three ended in acquittal - another five are pending trial and one more is under investigation.
More than a decade after Mariano Rajoy declared that Gürtel was "a plot against the PP and not the PP", 67 convicts - 25 of them were directly related to the party - accumulate sentences of 570 years in prison, according to the compilation made by THE COUNTRY.
In this complex tangle are a humble tailor, a pope and even a tribute to the victims of 11-M that the corrupt took advantage of.
The story of
The Gürtel case
also includes the PP's maneuvers to torpedo the investigations, from the change of fate of the policeman who initiated them, Manuel Morocho, as he himself confessed, to presenting himself as an accusation - the judge expelled them when he understood that they were defending one of the accused.
The origin.
The investigation began in November 2007 after a complaint from José Luis Peñas, mayor of the PP in the Majadahonda City Council.
Judge Baltasar Garzón assumes the case, which will later refer to the courts of Madrid and the Valencian Community.
In February 2009, Francisco Correa [Gürtel in German], organizer of events for the PP, and leader of the network, and Álvaro Pérez, El Bigotes, were arrested.
The photographs that will illustrate many information that will star from then on are from the wedding of José María Aznar's daughter, to which both were invited.
In April, EL PAÍS publishes the first recordings made by the police: the then Valencian president Francisco Camps calls El Bigotes (25 years in prison) "little friend of the soul."
They want "an egg".
Favors and gifts are made.
The suits.
The list of convicts linked to Gürtel was inaugurated, in 2011, by sentences against former Valencian vice president Víctor Campos and former head of the Tourism Cabinet Rafael Betoret after pleading guilty to having received suits paid for by the plot.
The Superior Court of the Valencian Community imposes a 9,600 euro fine on them and obliges them to return the garments or their amount.
Camps, and the former secretary of the Valencian PP, Ricardo Costa, are charged with the same crime and decide to go to trial.
The jury will acquit them by five in favor and four against.
"Is incredible.
Has he made all the clothes? ”Says the tailor, José Tomás, indignant.
Baltasar Garzón recalls that the tailor showed him how Camps had riddled him with calls.
One rang as he took her statement.
Fitur.
In 2018, the Supreme Court ratified the 11 sentences imposed by the Superior for the awards of the Valencian Government for the assembly of its pavilion at the tourist fair between 2005 and 2009. Correa and Pablo Crespo, former secretary of organization of the Galician PP, take the penalties highest (13 years) for embezzlement, active bribery, influence peddling and illicit association.
The former Valencian Minister of Tourism, Milagrosa Martínez, is sentenced to nine years in prison.
Gürtel's early days (1999-2005).
It is the sentence that causes the motion of censure that evicts Rajoy from La Moncloa in 2018 and that last October the Supreme Court ratified almost entirely (328 years in prison in total for 29 defendants).
The high court confirms that the plot created an "effective system of corruption" using its relationship with the PP, which forces it to return 245,492 euros obtained illegally.
The name of Bárcenas is cited 1,153 times.
Illegal financing of the Valencian PP.
In June 2018, the National High Court considered the illegal financing of the PP in the community to be proven during the electoral campaigns of 2007 and 2008. The court imposed penalties of between four months and six years in prison for 18 convicted of electoral crimes, of documentary falsification and against the Treasury.
Aena.
In May 2019, the Court condemned Correa, the former accountant of the plot, José Luis Izquierdo, the former communication director of Aena, Ángel López de la Mota and his subordinate, José María Gavari for irregularities in 22 contracts signed by their companies with the public entity and that totaled 2.28 million.
The Jerez branch.
In November 2019, the National Court signed its fourth sentence on the plot and sentenced Correa and Crespo to three years in prison for prevarication to achieve the award of three contracts (214,028 euros) by the Jerez City Council.
He also sentenced Javier Nombela, an employee of the network and ex-PP spokesman on the board of the Madrid district of Moncloa, to two years.
In 2016, the Supreme Court had filed the case against the former mayor of Jerez, and popular deputy María José García-Pelayo, whom the investigators considered key in the plot.
The Supreme Court considered "credible" the testimony of the former mayor about her ignorance of "all that back room from which emanates a strong aroma of irregularities, influence peddling or opaque decisions and, strictly speaking, caciquiles."
Visit of the Pope.
On November 25, the National Court convicted 19 of the 23 defendants for the diversion to the Gürtel network of public funds (a hit of 3.6 million euros) in the visit of Benedict XVI to Valencia in 2006. The court However, it lowered the penalties by applying the mitigation of undue delay - 14 years from the events and 12 from the beginning of the case.
Gürtel on the calendar.
The PP has pending the trial for Bárcenas' papers, revealed by EL PAÍS in 2013 and which registered a box b fed by donations from contractors with which they allegedly paid bonuses to party leaders or part of the headquarters works.
Thanks to Costa's confession, the trial for alleged mischief in the award of contracts in favor of the plot must also be held.
In addition to a process for money laundering and those of the branch of the City Councils of Arganda and Boadilla del Monte.
There is another case still under investigation also related to the roles of the popular ex-treasurer.
Plot figures
5,060 folios of convictions.
Three courts (the Superior of Justice of the Valencian Community, the National Court and the Supreme Court) have handed down 14 sentences, 10 convictions (including two ratifications).
The first is from 2011 and the last, from last November.
Another five cases are pending oral proceedings.
67 convicted, 25 charges of the PP.
67 people have been convicted, of which 25 are politicians or positions linked to the PP.
Among them are two former treasurers (Ángel Sanchis, from the Popular Alliance, and Luis Bárcenas), two former regional vice presidents (Víctor Campos, from the Valencian Community, and Jesús Merino, from Castilla y León) former councilors such as Alberto López Viejo, the former president of the Valencian Parliament, Milagrosa Martínez, or the former mayor of Pozuelo, Jesús Sepúlveda.
570 years in prison.
It is the sum of the penalties imposed on the 67 convicted persons.
They lead the classification Francisco Correa (92 years old);
Pablo Crespo (72 years old);
Luis Bárcenas (29 years old) and Álvaro Pérez,
El Bigotes
(25 years old).
Plenary in the catalog of crimes of corruption.
The different courts of justice that have judged the Gürtel case in the last nine years have considered those convicted of the plot guilty of the crimes of prevarication, embezzlement, fraud to the administration, falsification in official document, money laundering, electoral crime, crime against the Public Treasury, active bribery, passive bribery, influence peddling and illicit association.