A former senior Valencian official says that they hired Gürtel to "ingratiate themselves" with the Camps sector

Francisco Camps, former president of the Valencian Generalitat, last Monday in front of the National Court. Fernando Villar (EFE)

The fifth session of the trial of former Valencian president Francisco Camps, which has been held at the National Court since January, has served to put an end to the round of interrogations of the 11 defendants who have confessed and agreed with the Prosecutor's Office —of the 26 people who they sit on the bench.

Most of their testimonies have inflicted heavy blows on the defenses of the prosecuted former high-ranking officials of the autonomous government, including the former regional president himself.

In fact, this Wednesday, the court has heard how Enrique Navarro, chief of staff of the counselor Alicia de Miguel between 2003 and 2007, has influenced that this department contracted with the Gürtel plot to "ingratiate" with the sector of the PP that it headed fields.

, Francisco Correa's man in the Valencian Community,

appeared at the council .

As he has stated, despite the fact that he "had not made an appointment" with Alicia de Miguel, she received him and immediately introduced him to the apartment so that he could be known.

"Getting access to a

is not easy [...] This man simply appeared there out of nowhere," he stressed, before stressing the "interest" of the counselor in awarding a project to Pérez.

“I asked him why we were doing it with this man.

And Alicia said that Álvaro had a friendship with [Ricardo] Costa, [former general secretary of the Valencian PP], and closeness with Camps”.

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The version that Navarro has put on the table is that De Miguel, from the sector of the party close to Eduardo Zaplana (then in conflict with that of Camps), feared that he could be left out of the Government in the next legislature.

"And this was a way, through Peréz, to ingratiate himself [...] It was to look good before Costa, and Costa would already transmit", he added.

In previous sessions, the leaders of Gürtel pointed to Camps as the gateway for the corrupt network in the Valencian Community, thanks to the friendship of El Bigotes with the former regional president.

"As Álvaro Pérez had a very good relationship with Camps, I decided to open an office in Valencia," said Francisco Correa, ringleader of the plot.

“Pérez was related to certain regional leaders.

He knew Camps.

Mr. Pérez told me, that he had a very close relationship with Camps, that there was chemistry, ”added Pablo Crespo,

in the plot and former Secretary of Organization of the Galician PP.

Álvaro Pérez himself summed it up this past Monday: “Camps suggested that I go to Valencia to work.

[...] What I spoke with Camps is: 'Come to Valencia and do all the party acts' [...] And there were companies that did the same thing as I did in Valencia and did 200 for the Valencian Administration jobs per year.

And I did, between 2004 and 2009, 10 jobs.

So I asked Camps to help me, and he helped me”.

This thesis has been confirmed by two other former workers from Correa's companies, Isabel Jordán and Mónica Magariños, who affirmed that contracts were cut up by order of the Generalitat to circumvent the law, and that even El Bigotes met the then Valencian president in a tennis club to get an award.

“Camps was wearing sportswear, I don't know if he was with his family.

He came out and they were talking.

And when he returned, Álvaro said very happily: "The

has given us everything."

And they gave us the Open [de Tenis]”, Jordán summarized this Wednesday.

"I did not dispatch with Camps"

After ending the interrogations of the 11 defendants who have admitted the facts, this Monday they have also started the statements of the 15 defendants who have not agreed with the Prosecutor's Office.

Salvadora Ibars, former general director of Institutional Promotion, has been the first to do so.

According to the public ministry, Camps "verbally gave instructions to Ibars" to award a company from Gürtel, Orange Market, the "work related to the assembly of the

of Large Projects” of the Fitur 2009 tourism fair. But she has denied it this Wednesday: “I have never dispatched with Mr. Camps.

I have never had a professional or personal relationship with him [...] I have never sat down or had a meeting with him.

They can call even the last janitor of the Palau [de la Generalitat], who will not have seen me enter his office”, insisted the former general director, before taking out a blackboard with drawings to explain to the court how the positions in Fitur were arranged .

The defendant Salvadora Ibars, during her statement on February 22, 2023 in the trial against Camps, with a blackboard on the Fitur posts, on one of the monitors of the National Court.

The Prosecutor's Office, which requests two and a half years in prison for Camps for crimes of prevarication and fraud, maintains that the former president maneuvered to irregularly award a contract in 2009 to the companies in the plot and thus favor the Correa network, " as it had been doing since 2005”.

Along the same lines, the investigating magistrate José de la Mata wrote in one of his resolutions: "There is evidence that [the former leader of the PP] decided the award to Orange Market and that he gave the appropriate instructions for such a result to occur ”.

The trial will resume next Monday with the sixth session.

The hearing will continue with the statements of the other defendants who have not reached an agreement with the public prosecutor.

Among them, Francisco Camps, who is expected to be interrogated last.