The National Court archives the latest Gürtel investigation, which was looking for links between donations to the PP and awards

The judge of the National Court

has agreed on Monday to file the

that investigated the possible link between the donations of businessmen to the PP reflected in the

and the public awards.

This is the last cause related to the corrupt plot that was still being investigated in the Hearing.

The examining magistrate considers that there is not sufficient evidence of crime to proceed.

The last element that has led the matter to the file has been the expert report of the General State Intervention (IGAE), which did not find in the adjudications examined "non-compliance with the applicable regulations", which "makes it impossible to establish a relationship between the payments or donations and the contracts awarded".

The resolution recalls that this part of the separate piece known as

was reopened in February 2017 following the statements in the main trial of the

by businessman

and the leader of the Gürtel plot,

.

Both linked the awards to payments to the PP that could be those collected by the former treasurer of the PP Luis Bárcenas in his hidden accounting.

Izquierda Unida, which exercises popular accusation, managed to reopen the investigation.

The court requested the practice of proceedings to "verify if certain annotations reflected in the so-called Bárcenas papers or B accounting of the Popular Party, constitute the accounting documentary support, however rudimentary it may be, of real transactions that would reflect the cash considerations obtained by the Popular Party and certain persons, in exchange for interceding or putting pressure to obtain certain awards of public works to the payers of such illicit commissions".

Without connection

In his order, Pedraz points out that the IGAE report does not reveal the commission of the crimes that were being investigated.

"In it, the form of contracting is analyzed, the possible incidents in the different files, but in none of them is any arbitrariness or irregularity concluded, and what they do not throw is any element that allows the connection of said contracts with the alleged donations of the so-called

".

The consequence is that the judge archives the matter again, which due to the absence of evidence had already been closed seven years ago.

"In this way, what was agreed in the order dated March 23, 2015 becomes fully applicable [...] in which the provisional dismissal of the actions of the investigated parties was agreed [...], since it was not possible to establish a link or relationship between the income from investigated donations and the awarding of public contracts to presumed donors, the provisional conclusion in this regard must be that of the absence, for the moment, of sufficient evidence to consider justified the commission of the crimes attributed to the different defendants...", explains the magistrate.

In the same sense, it stresses that despite the intense investigation -begun in 2013, archived in 2015 and reopened in 2017- that caused the contracting files of all the companies to be examined, "there is no element that allows us to infer, even indicatively, that those events have occurred."

And he adds: "There is no note, an email, a document, a recorded conversation, a testimonial statement... that provides any incriminating data; nor the multiple reports from the UDEF, Auditors of the Prosecutor's Office and IGAE".

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• PP

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• Luis Barcenas

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• Corruption