The former Minister of Economy and Finance of the Junta de Andalucía Carmen Martínez Aguayo, sentenced to six years in prison for embezzlement in the political piece
of the ERE case
, was admitted to the Alcalá de Guadaíra prison, in Seville, this Wednesday, according to advanced the newspaper
Abc
and has confirmed his lawyer to this newspaper.
The Seville Court had transferred, in an order dated December 22, the eight convicted former high-ranking officials of the administration who had 10 days to enter the prison of their choice.
Martínez Aguayo, 69, is the only one of the former senior officials of the Junta de Andalucía sentenced to prison terms for embezzlement of which his imprisonment has been disclosed.
The period of 10 calendar days established by the Court of Seville expired at 11:59 p.m. on December 31, although several lawyers interpret that time ends on January 2, considering that the 10 days begin to run from the day after the that they were notified of the order, on December 23, and consider January 1 as a non-business day.
Those are the accounts that the representative of Martínez Aguayo herself had transferred to this newspaper when consulted, but her defendant did not want to use up that time.
The former Minister of Economy and Finance, who succeeded Griñán in 2009 in that position, after being his
number two
in the department since 2004, he always denied having read the permanent financial control reports on the ERE that warned of the "inappropriate use" of the payment of social and labor aid, as the Anti-Corruption Prosecutor's Office maintained.
"They did not go through my table," he declared before the Court during the oral hearing for fraudulent aid.
She delegated, she said, that reading of the reports to her technical team because she received more than 100 reports of this type a year.
"The vice-council and the council act when we are required to in the existence of discrepancies," she then claimed.
During the sessions, she only admitted that she dispatched with Griñán the improvement measures proposed by the General Intervention, such as the preparation of quarterly reports within the framework of Permanent Financial Control.
Martínez Aguayo, a doctor by profession,
Among the multiple scenes that the instruction of the ERE macro-cause has left for political and judicial history, one of the most remembered is that of the press conference offered by Martínez Aguayo next to a shopping cart full of filing cabinets.
“Does anyone think that I can read all this?”, she affirmed, to justify that she, first as deputy minister and then as Minister of Economy and Finance, could not be aware of the reports on the irregularity of the aid that she sent her. the General Intervention, as the accusation maintained.
When Griñán began to be designated as responsible for the design and management of the aid, she also assured emphatically that she never commented on the reports that warned of the lack of control in the distribution of funds with him.
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The Seville Court will wait for a forensic report on Griñán's health to decide whether to stop his admission to prison
Martínez Aguayo was sentenced for embezzlement and prevarication to six years in prison and 15 years of absolute disqualification, the same sentence as Griñán.
The former president of the Board is waiting for the Court of Seville to receive the report from the forensic doctor certifying that the treatment for prostate cancer that he suffers from is incompatible with his stay in jail.
Her defense sent a letter to the magistrates the same day that the order granting 10 days for admission to prison was issued, requesting the suspension of her admission, alleging that she suffered from a serious illness.
Griñán is undergoing radiotherapy treatment with hormonal support and this Thursday, as his lawyer explained to this newspaper, he planned to send the report of his last medical appointment, on December 27, to the Seville Court,
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 the former president of the Board José Antonio 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 General Director 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 coming 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.
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