10 years of the Mercury case: the dealings that ended with Manuel Bustos, the great promise of the PSC

The former mayor of Sabadell, Manuel Bustos, leaving the Sabadell courts, in a file image. ROGER BENET

On November 27, 2012, when it had not yet dawned, the Mossos d'Esquadra broke into the Sabadell Town Hall, as well as several homes and companies.

There was then talk of a large corrupt plot in which businessmen paid commissions to political officials in exchange for obtaining public works contracts.

Although this extreme has not yet been proven, the

hatched into nearly 40 pieces of other alleged criminal episodes of different caliber, which, in any case, revealed the cacique forms of its mayor, Manuel Bustos, with great power in the PSC, who aspired to relevant positions.

Finally, small-time dealings -such as forgiving family members fines- are what have ended up sending him to prison.

The Mercury macrocase has been made up of tens of thousands of pages and 38 pieces, of which only nine are currently alive, while the trial has already been held in three of them;

the rest have been archived.

The first two sentences that were held are precisely those that affected Bustos.

In the first, about the rigging of a contract in the Montcada i Reixac City Council, the former mayor was sentenced to 16 months in prison, the same sentence received by former PSC

Daniel Fernández, another socialist heavyweight whose career was cut short. for the

.

Being the first sentence and less than two years, and after taking an anti-corruption course, Bustos avoided jail.

But I couldn't avoid it after the second: three years in prison and 16 years of disqualification for ordering the annulment of family fines.

In the third of the trials, for the fraudulent use of the VISA of the Vallès Occidental Waste Consortium by its manager, Bustos was sentenced for profit, but returned the money.

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The allowances that Bustos charged to the FMC amount to 9,500 euros

The former mayor finally entered the Lledoners prison last January, but in March, just two months later, he achieved a controversial third degree, which allowed him to leave on weekends.

After the Prosecutor's appeal, the judge annulled his permit and in August he was admitted again.

Bustos took the reins of the Sabadell mayor's office from 1999 to 2012, after the resignation of the emblematic mayor Antoni Farrés, especially known for his fight against corruption.

With his populist policies and his tight control of the message and public image, Bustos managed to build a reputation for himself.

With the "are you with me or against me", he built a network of followers and friends around him who he always helped, even if it was

into the Administration and pulled the strings to have people on his rope in nearby municipalities, and have them like that too under your control.

He also maneuvered within the party, where he was a heavyweight of the apparatus, and even aspired to a minister's portfolio.

But the promising career ended 10 years ago.

After the two convictions, Bustos is still charged in four pieces: two are pending the indictment of the parties, in another he faces two years of disqualification (for trying to prevent a businessman from denouncing a land spill) and another eight years prison for the freelance hiring of PSC sympathizers in the Vallès Occidental Waste Consortium.

However, Bustos does not appear as being investigated in the main piece of the case, number 1, on the alleged payment of commissions in exchange for public works, whose main defendant is the former PP councilor, Jordi Soriano, without position in the municipal government of then.

There are other relevant pieces that are also awaiting a trial date, such as number 28 -which focuses on the alleged rigging of the garbage collection and street cleaning contest, in the hands of Smatsa-, number 6 -for the illegal dumping of land in the farm of can Xupa- or 25, which investigates the embezzlement of funds from the Federation of Municipalities of Catalonia - which Bustos presided over - in irregular subsidies or payment of 9,500 euros in feasts of the former mayor and his entourage.

All in all, nine pieces that, after the closing of the investigation, await a trial, which does not seem imminent, and with the risk that in some of them the crime may prescribe.

At the moment he has not done it because, albeit slowly, proceedings have been carried out.

"But it does weigh on them an undue delay, which may be a mitigation that the defenses use to reduce the sentences," says Raúl Barroso, a lawyer for the Sabadell Lliure de Corrupció Platform, which exercises popular prosecution.

Barroso does not consider that the

It advances more slowly than others, but admits that the fact of being "a macro summary that has undergone constant changes of investigating judges" does not help.

"In addition, those investigated have a certain purchasing power, which allows them to fill the courts with resources and delay the process," concludes the lawyer.

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