Laura Borràs points out that the officials who incriminated her are responsible for the irregular contracts

Laura Borràs has denied this Monday all the accusations of corruption that are imputed to her and has held two officials of the Institute of Catalan Letters (ILC) responsible for the irregular contracts for which she, who presided over that public entity between 2013 and 2018, is being judged.

In her long-awaited statement before the magistrates of the Superior Court of Justice of Catalonia (TSJC), the president of Junts per Catalunya and suspended president of the Catalan Parliament has assured that the computer scientist —and also accused— Isaías Herrero obtained ILC contracts worth 335,700 euros without contest not for being his friend but for the good hand he had with technology.

“He was a digital artist, a creator”, Borràs has said about him.

The leader of Junts has refused to answer the questions of the Prosecutor's Office: "In response to everything that has happened before and during the trial, I will only answer my lawyers," she has argued.

She began to respond in a hoarse tone, but as the interrogation progressed, her responses multiplied the decibels.

"Everything that was done was done because it could be done," Borràs stated.

Next, she has disclaimed responsibility for the payments made by the ILC, expressly pointing out to the two officials who had incriminated her in previous sessions of the trial by explaining that she had been repeatedly warned that she was abusing the award of contracts by finger

Borràs has maintained that in this body it is customary to award some 800 orders a year with minor contracts, with a cost of less than 18,000 euros, and has remarked that, in her days as director, the subscriptions were subject to strict control by the auditors and the officials in charge of administration.

At that point in her statement, she referred to the senior official who, when she testified in court as a witness, revealed that the current president of Junts had disregarded the intervention's warnings about freelance contracts.

"It was clear that all the jobs were done by Isaías," declared the public employee, who was in charge of the institution's administrative management between 2011 and 2016. This Monday, Borràs replied: "In the face of a judicial process, I understand that [the official ] you want to remove responsibility”.

Laura Borràs, accompanied by her daughter Marta Botet, this Monday at the gates of the Barcelona Court. Marta Perez (EFE)

Isaías Herrero, the computer scientist also accused who allegedly benefited from the freehand contracts awarded by the then director of the ILC, last week endorsed the prosecution's thesis before the court: Borràs made him a "disguised contract", declared Herreo, after reach an agreement with the Prosecutor's Office that will foreseeably result in a reduction of his sentence.

The defendant has replied that she thought of Herrero to create the ILC website because it had to be "a great reference portal for Catalan literature".

Sowing doubts about the tests

Also during this Monday's session, Borràs' defense lawyers have tried to cast doubt on the evidentiary process followed by the Mossos d'Esquadra and the Civil Guard when investigating the emails that Laura Borràs exchanged with Isaías Herrero and that point to that supposed favorable treatment.

The team of experts hired by the defense of Borràs, headed by the ultra Luis Enrique Hellín, has maintained that the computer files were altered during the police investigation: "An interaction occurs" in those digital files, he has assured, but without being able to specify what modifications they underwent.

The hiring of Hellín —a former member of Fuerza Nueva and convicted of murder in the Transition— as an expert witness for the independence leader has been surrounded by controversy.

During his statement, Borràs said that he did not know him and that hiring him was the decision of his lawyers, in whom, he has emphasized, he has complete confidence.

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