Camps tries to save his stage in the trial of the 'Gürtel case' despite the high officials already convicted

The National Court has decided to postpone the start of the trial of Francisco Camps, former president of the Generalitat Valenciana, who is facing a request from the Anti-Corruption Prosecutor for two and a half years in prison for his alleged involvement in the

.

The oral hearing was to start this Monday with the phase of preliminary questions, but the court has agreed to suspend the start until next week, after several lawyers -among them, that of the former leader of the PP- alleged difficulties in accessing documents from the summary , which generates "helplessness".

Before, Camps has taken advantage of the presence of cameras to defend his time as head of the regional Executive, despite the multitude of senior officials already sentenced in other processes, since the Court itself considered proven the illegal financing of the party in the community during the electoral campaigns of 2007 and 2008, when he was president.

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Judge José Antonio Mora, president of the court, has been in charge of communicating the decision to postpone the start of the trial for a week: “The Chamber, aware of guaranteeing the right to defense, is going to suspend the process for a week.

From this moment they will have time to access the office and, with the computer scientists who will be at their disposal, access these documents”.

As detailed by the judge, who is also trying to avoid possible "annulments" that cause the trial to be repeated, the hearing will finally resume at 10:00 on January 30.

The National Court has thus lived a day of great hustle and bustle.

This Monday, two especially media trials coincided and those involved met inside the headquarters of San Fernando de Henares (Madrid), to face their respective trials.

On the one hand, in the room on the ground floor, those accused of belonging to the Gürtel plot have sat down: among them, its main leaders (Francisco Correa; Pablo Crespo; and Álvaro Perez, alias

) and those accused for being part of his Valencian network, including Camps and other senior officials of their regional governments.

On the other hand, on the first floor, a hearing was planned against 47 alleged members and collaborators of the Mallorcan branch of the Los Angeles del Infierno motorcycle gang, accused of crimes such as criminal organization, drug trafficking and money laundering.

Minutes before President Mora announced the decision to postpone the start of the trial, Camps himself spoke before entering the judicial building.

The former popular leader has stood before the television cameras to defend his innocence and present himself as a victim of political "persecution".

“It is an absolute scandal.

The Anti-Corruption Prosecutor has been trying to destroy my work as President of the Generalitat for 14 years, and that of so many people who collaborated with me in the great project that we launched in the Valencian Community", he said, before describing the process as a "nightmare ”.

And he has riveted: "None of the people who will be judged has taken a euro in his pocket.

I don't know what I'm doing here."

But the story that the public ministry puts on the table is very different.

Also that of the investigating judge José de la Mata, who concluded that Camps maneuvered to irregularly award a contract in 2009 to the companies of the Gürtel plot and thus favor the Francisco Correa network, "as he had been doing since 2005."

"There is evidence," wrote the judge of the National Court, "that [the former president] decided the award to Orange Market and that he gave the appropriate instructions for such a result to occur."

The defendants' dock, with Álvaro Pérez, Pablo Crespo and Francisco Correa, in the front row;

and Francisco Camps, in the background on the right, this Monday.

The investigation of De la Mata and the Prosecutor's Office give Camps a key role for Correa's corrupt network to establish itself in the Valencian Community.

"We are not facing an isolated and unrelated statement from some people investigated, as Francisco Camps' defense invokes [...] In reality, we are facing an arsenal of very consistent evidence that allows us to affirm that Camps participated in directing the contract of large Fitur 2009 events in favor of Orange Market.

And that he did it to favor Orange Market, as he had been doing since 2005, in exchange for his patience and resignation in the face of non-payment of the multimillion-dollar debt that the PP of the Valencian Community had with Orange Market and his 'collaboration' by accepting the illegal payment formulas that the PP used to pay off the indicated debt”,

Camps also faces another adversity.

Various defendants have reached an agreement with Anticorruption and have confessed their involvement.

Among them, Francisco Correa and Álvaro Pérez.

The latter wrote a letter in which he detailed his close friendship with the former president and all the contract awards that he achieved thanks to the former leader of the Valencian PP.

However, the former leader of the PP downplays their importance: “They do not have any type of probative value.

I have absolute peace of mind because I know that the judges pay no attention to this type of conformity”.

—And do you have hope of returning to the forefront of politics?

a journalist asked him in front of the National Court.

-Yes!

The former president responded bluntly.

The former Valencian president has been striving for years to save his stage at the head of the Community, but the courts have already ruled forcefully.

In other trials in which he has not sat on the bench, the magistrates have considered it proven that the Generalitat that he headed "manipulated" contracts in favor of Gürtel or that the PP that he led was financed "irregularly" in the campaigns of 2007 and 2008. In fact, among the charges sentenced in other hearings, are his general secretary, Ricardo Costa, who recounted in the Hearing that Camps knew and participated in the irregularities;

his vice president Víctor Campos —another of his vice presidents, Juan Cotino, died in full court against him—;

his regional manager, Cristina Ibáñez;

his general secretary of the parliamentary group, David Serra;

his treasurer,

Yolanda Garcia;

his counselor and president of the Autonomous Chamber, Milagrosa Martínez;

and his advisor Rafael Blasco.

The 81 convicted by Gürtel

In addition to Camps, the National Court prosecuted another 27 people for this trial: among which three former advisers of the popular governments of the Generalitat Valenciana (Alicia de Miguel, Luis Rosado and Manuel Cervera) stand out.

The result of this oral hearing will clarify whether the number of those sentenced to prison for their involvement in the Gürtel plot is increased.

According to the count of EL PAÍS, the Spanish justice system has already handed down prison sentences for 81 people for their involvement in this network of corruption, including dozens of officials, advisers and relatives of the PP.

Until now, the courts have prosecuted nine lines of investigation, where the accumulated sentences exceed 600 years in prison.

In addition, the conservative party has been sentenced three times for profiting from the plot.