Other controversial pardons with political undertones

Rafael Vera and José Barrionuevo (just behind the door) leave the Guadalajara jail on December 24, 1998 SANTI BURGOS

The latest statements by the President of the Government and several ministers and socialist leaders point to the fact that the Executive has practically decided to pardon the pro-independence leaders convicted of the

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. It will not be the first time that a Government grants a measure of grace to politicians or those convicted of serious crimes in State affairs, although on few occasions the Executive has had to argue its decision without the support of either the sentencing court or the Prosecutor's Office , as in this case. These are some of the most controversial precedents for pardons.

Alfonso Armada.

The one who was one of the leaders of the coup attempt of 23-F was pardoned on Christmas Eve, 1988. Sentenced to 26 years, eight months and one day in prison, he had asked for the pardon five times, and finally He ended up getting it for "equity reasons" when he had been admitted to a hospital for more than a year due to the aftermath of a stroke. The Supreme Court was in favor of extinguishing the sentence due to his state of health and because the former general, who was 69 years old at the time, had repeatedly manifested "his loyalty to the Crown and to the constitutional order." According to the court, this attitude made it possible to consider that the sentence imposed was already “unnecessary”.

The González government also had on the table requests to pardon the leader of the coup plotters, Lieutenant Colonel Antonio Tejero, but ruled out doing so.

And it rejected it against the criteria of the Supreme Military Chamber, which had reported in favor alleging reasons of equity and even "public convenience" because the measure "would contribute to the forgetting of facts that should already remain in the past." .

Former General Alfonso Armada, convicted of the coup d'état of 23-FLUIS SEVILLANO

Barrionuevo and Vera.

As in the case of Armada, the pardon of 10 of the 12 convicted for the kidnapping of Segundo Marey in 1983 by the GAL arrived in a Council of Ministers on Christmas Eve, but already under the Government of José María Aznar, in 1998. Among those favored by this measure were former Interior Minister José Barrionuevo and former Secretary of State for Security Rafael Vera. Both had only been in jail for three and a half months and were also pardoned with the approval of the Supreme Court, which had sentenced them to 10 years in prison. It was the court itself that proposed that the measure of grace be partial, of two thirds of the sentence, which in practice meant their release from prison when they were granted the third degree.

The Council of Ministers justified its decision by “respecting” the opinion of the court, which claimed that a long time had passed, 15 years, since the crimes were committed, that the perpetrators did not act “for personal or selfish purposes” and that they were not going to reoffend.

Gómez de Liaño… and 1,400 other convicts.

The Government of Aznar took refuge in the Holy See and the Jubilee Year to grant in December 2000 a package with 1,443 grace measures among which were mixed insubordination, three convicted by the

Filesa case

and the former judge of the National Court Javier Gómez de Liaño, sentenced to 15 years of disqualification and removed from the career for continued prevarication in the

Sogecable case.

The Prosecutor's Office had reported in favor, alleging Liaño's "notorious professional career" and an alleged "popular outcry" that the Supreme Court considered "absolutely minority" in the report that it sent to Justice advising against the grace measure. The Criminal Chamber considered that there were no reasons “neither of justice nor of equity” and warned that the definitive deprivation of the judge's position, which had already been executed, could not be the object of pardon. Despite this, the Executive opened the door to the former judge to re-enter the career, although he was prohibited from exercising in the Court for 25 years.

A year later, the Supreme Court annulled this possibility by declaring that it violated the pardon law, but the Conflict Court restored the status of judge to him by recognizing the power of the Government to define the scope of the grace measure.

However, Liaño took a leave of absence and is now practicing as a lawyer.

Former judge Javier Gómez de Liaño, convicted of prevarication J.L. PINO

The banker Alfredo Sáenz.

The Government of José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero pardoned the CEO of Banco Santander in November 2011, about to leave La Moncloa after losing the elections that gave an absolute majority to Mariano Rajoy. Sáenz had been sentenced to three months of arrest and disqualification from exercising his trade as a banker for a crime of false accusation and false complaint committed in 1994. The grace measure had a favorable report from the Prosecutor's Office and unfavorable from the Supreme Court, which did not he saw reasons of justice or equity. The high court ended up annulling part of the pardon when it understood that the Government "exceeded" because by granting the grace measure, it canceled the banker's criminal record, a decision that allowed him to continue exercising his activity. Sáenz, however, resigned in April 2013,when the Bank of Spain was studying his dismissal.

The banker Alfredo Sáenz.

Kiko Huesca / EFE

A former senior Pujol official.

The Government of Rajoy granted in 2013 another pardon with political roots that raised great dust: that of a high official of the Generalitat from the time of Jordi Pujol and a businessman, both militants of Unió Democràtica, who had been convicted of prevarication and embezzlement of public funds.

In 2009, the Barcelona Court had imposed four and a half years in prison on Josep Maria Servitje, former secretary general of the Department of Labor of the Generalitat, and two years and three months on Víctor Manuel Lorenzo Acuña.

The Executive eliminated the jail sentences and changed them to a fine of 3,650 euros.

Both the Provincial Court and the Prosecutor's Office had opposed the measure, but the Government did not take their reports into account.