Former Spanish Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy was accused on Monday March 8 by a former treasurer of his party, the Popular Party (PP, right), of having illegally received bonuses before taking the head of government in 2011, in during a lawsuit on the illicit financing of the PP.
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Director of the PP from 1990 to 2008, then its treasurer until 2009, Luis Bárcenas is the key figure in this corruption affair called "
the B fund
", named after a slush fund supplied for twenty years by donations from businessmen and which would have served in particular to pay bonuses to the leaders and collaborators of this party.
"
I gave them the envelope with the money coming back to them,
" he said Monday to the prosecutor who questioned him before the National Hearing, a special court in charge of cases of this type.
He said that among the beneficiaries of these payments were, in addition to Mariano Rajoy, seven other personalities who held important positions within the PP or ministerial portfolios, first under the government of José Maria Aznar (1996-2004), then under that of Rajoy (2011-2018).
According to him, these payments in cash were intended to allow these officials to maintain the same level of remuneration within the government as when they were members of the PP and that they accumulated their elected salary and representation costs.
The “
B fund
” was then also used to pay collaborators that the party wanted to pamper, he continued.
Rajoy, who has always rejected these accusations, is to be heard as a witness during this trial scheduled to last until May in San Fernando de Henares, near Madrid.
However, he will avoid a delicate confrontation with Luis Bárcenas, the presiding judge having declined this request for the defense of the former treasurer of the PP.
Rajoy will therefore return to the same room where he testified in 2017 during the main trial in this gigantic corruption case known in Spain as “
Gûrtel
”.
It had led to the overthrow in June 2018 of the Rajoy government by a motion of censure tabled by the current Socialist Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez.
For his part, Mr. Bárcenas was sentenced to 29 years in prison, which he is currently serving.