Camps intensifies the campaign to try to stop his trial at the National Court

The former president of the Generalitat Valenciana, Francisco Camps (in the center), together with the popular deputy Adolfo Suárez Illana, at an act of the PP national convention held in Valencia last October. Manuel Bruque (EFE)

Francisco Camps, former president of the Generalitat Valenciana and former regional leader of the PP, has intensified the campaign to try to stop the pending trial for the

, for which there is still no date and where he faces a two-year request from the Prosecutor's Office and a half in jail for prevarication and fraud. The former popular leader, who has offered himself to the party to return to the forefront of politics, has submitted a brief to the National High Court to request that a battery of preliminary questions be raised to the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) that, in their opinion, must be resolved before holding the oral hearing to determine if their rights have been violated.

“These are elements that must be delimited and clear prior to the trial, as they can directly affect the continuation of the procedure itself against [Camps],” states the document, dated December 28 and to which he had access. THE COUNTRY. The former regional president maintains that the National High Court violated his right to the presumption of innocence by including him in this case —focused on awards from the Generalitat to Gürtel and which he describes as “a clear judgment of political bias”— after members of the plot will be pointed out in another oral hearing.

In his writing, the popular also charges against the investigating judge José de la Mata, whom he accuses of having opened a prospective investigation and about whom he questions his "impartiality" for having held the position of general director of Modernization of Justice between 2009 and 2011, during the Government of José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero (PSOE). The magistrate concluded that the former president maneuvered to irregularly award a contract in 2009 to the companies of the Gürtel plot and thus favor the corrupt network led by Francisco Correa, "as he had been doing since 2005." After Camps' appeal, the investigation was endorsed by the Criminal Chamber of the National High Court, which considered that there are enough "indications of criminality" to place him on the defendant's bench.

According to the court, the investigations have "indicitively proven the direct and personal participation" of the former popular leader in the irregular adjudication of the stand for major Fitur 2009 events, as well as the "close relationship" that he had with Álvaro Pérez, Correa's man in Valencia and nicknamed

. The Criminal Chamber added that Camps knew that the regional PP owed money to Orange Market, a company in the Gürtel network: “The contract awards directed by Camps were made in order to gain time and calm Pérez in the face of the continuous requirements that was doing (pressured by Correa) to pay off the increasingly voluminous debt of the PP”.

In addition, in the trial held on the irregular financing of the popular Valencians, Ricardo Costa, former general secretary of the regional PP, already pointed to Camps by stating that the formation paid for the 2007 and 2008 electoral campaigns "with black money from business contractors of the Generalitat” by indication of the then president of the Community. El Bigotes also pointed in the same direction and even detailed that Costa telephoned Camps in his presence to "ask for instructions" on how to pay off the party's debt.

Even so, the former Valencian president says in the recent letter sent to the Court that the instruction violated his right to defense; that De la Mata did not comply with his obligation to “seek both incriminating and exculpatory evidence —“that is, assess a hypothesis that is compatible with innocence,” he points out—; and questions, among other issues, that the statements made by members of the plot in other trials can be used against him. Above all, he wants the CJEU to rule.

This is not the only initiative that Camps has taken in recent months. As reported by Europa Press, the former popular leader filed a complaint with the United Nations (UN) Human Rights Committee for the alleged lack of guarantees in the procedure. He has also challenged the progressive magistrate José Ricardo de Prada, who is part of the court that will judge him. The politician attributes a "blatant animosity" against the PP. De Prada was a member of the court that tried the main plot of the

, known as Época I, which ended with the first sentence passed against the popular for benefiting from the corrupt network and that promoted the motion of censure of the socialist Pedro Sánchez who evicted Mariano Rajoy from La Moncloa.

Since then, the conservative formation maintains an intense campaign against this magistrate.