The Court gives Griñán and the rest of those convicted of the 'ERE case' 10 days to enter prison

The former president of the Junta de Andalucía, José Antonio Griñán, and the rest of the seven former senior administration officials sentenced to prison terms in the so-called political piece

already have a maximum term for their entry into prison: before on January 1, 2023. The Seville Court has given them 10 days, which begin this Friday, to voluntarily enter a prison, after dismissing their appeals against the order issued on November 15 , in which he refused to suspend the execution of the sentence, as the defenses had claimed.

Only for the former Deputy Minister of Employment, Agustín Barberá, sentenced to seven years in prison for embezzlement, the countdown set by the First Section magistrates is not activated.

The judges have agreed to paralyze his entry into prison until the suspension of execution of the sentence is processed, which his defense requested, alleging his poor state of health, while awaiting the forensic doctor's report certifying that he suffers from a "very serious illness." seriously with incurable conditions" established by the Penal Code, in accordance with the order issued this Thursday and against which there is no appeal.

That same suspension is the one that the defense of the former president of the Board will try for his client who this Thursday, after knowing the resolution of the Hearing, has presented a document before the court requesting that his admission to jail be stopped for suffering a serious illness, as the SER chain has advanced and this newspaper has been able to confirm through Griñán's lawyer, José María Calero.

Article 80.4 of the Criminal Code provides that judges and courts may grant the suspension of any sentence imposed without being subject to any requirement in the event that the prisoner is afflicted with a very serious illness with incurable conditions.

That is the argument that the magistrates have adopted in the Barberá case and it is the one that Calero hopes will be followed with his client.

The court does not move one iota of the reasoning that it already reiterated in its resolution of November 15, in which the request to suspend the execution of the sentences ratified by the Supreme Court was rejected.

"The appellants raise issues that have already been resolved in the appealed order and there is no data or circumstance that allows the resolution issued to be amended," the magistrates indicate in their brief.

They also stick to the arguments put forward at the time to reject both the appeals by the defense of the convicted relatives to the long time elapsed since the start of the macro-cause, as well as the petitions for suspension due to the filing of annulment motions before the Supreme Court.

Next, the magistrates go on to address the issues specifically raised in their appeals for each of the former high-ranking officials convicted.

Thus, with respect to the request put forward by the defense of Griñán, sentenced to six years in prison for the crime of embezzlement, that a reasonable period of suspension of imprisonment of three months be established, the court states that "it cannot attend to said request, since there is no reason to agree to a postponement of compliance with a custodial sentence, lacking legal support and which would entail a comparative grievance for the rest of the prisoners and an arbitrary decision lacking justification”.

In the case of the former Minister of Finance, Carmen Martínez Aguayo, who must also serve six years in prison for embezzlement, the magistrates argue that the individual vote of the two Supreme Court magistrates who claimed their defense "is irrelevant, since individual votes do not they modify the condemnatory pronouncement of the sentence and do not acquire transcendence in regards” to its execution.

On the resources of the former Employment Minister, Antonio Fernández, sentenced to seven years and 11 months for prevarication, and the former director of the IFA-IDEA agency, Miguel Ángel Serrano, who is serving six and a half years in prison for the same crime , their arguments that the appealed order did not resolve or rule on the legal issue raised for the suspension are also rejected.

The allegation of the former Employment Minister, José Antonio Viera, who has been sentenced to seven years in prison for embezzlement, is also dismissed, on the understanding that "there is no exceptionality in this case", such as those listed by his defense to suspend the execution of the sentence.

Four of the convicted also claimed the violation of the right to effective judicial protection, another argument that the Court of Seville rejects on the grounds that "the appealed decision is issued based on strict criteria of legality when executing a final judgment issued by the Second Chamber of the Court Supreme".

Almost 12 years after the macro-cause of the ERE began, the political piece seems headed for its almost definitive conclusion —waiting for the pardons presented by all those convicted to be resolved— before 2023 begins. In addition to Griñan , his former Finance Minister, Carmen Martínez Aguayo, the former Innovation Minister, Francisco Vallejo, the former Employment Ministers Antonio Fernández and José Antonio Viera, the former CEO of the Idea agency, Miguel Ángel Serrano, and the former Vice Minister of Innovation, Jesús María Rodríguez Román, will have to enter the prison of their choice in the next 10 days.

The former Deputy Minister of Employment, Agustín Barberá, will have to wait for the suspension of the execution of his seven-year prison sentence to be processed.

The former president of the Board, as reported by this newspaper, did not have high hopes that this last resort before the Seville Court could prosper and has assumed since summer that he was going to end up going to prison, according to his relatives.

Judicial sources indicate that, given the dates on which the Court was to rule on the appeals of the convicted, the order was going to be made public so that the deadlines for entry into prison did not coincide with Christmas.

Griñán, however, convinced as he is that he did not commit any crime in relation to the management of fraudulent public aid from the Junta, which has harshly criticized both that room and the Anti-Corruption Prosecutor's Office and the Supreme Court, last summer when ratifying the 2018 conviction,

The order of the Court was known shortly before the first budgets were to be voted on in the Andalusian Parliament with an absolute majority of the PP, in some very angry sessions between the PP and the PSOE-A, on account of the fact that the Socialists did not submit the amendments to the accounts on time.

In Wednesday's session, the spokesman for the popular, Toni Martín, in addition to delving into the wound of this lack of coordination, alluded to the sentence to exact charges for the case of fraudulent aid, a common resource in his interventions .

The leader of the PSOE, Juan Espadas, has affirmed for his part that he "has nothing to say about the ERE",