The Prosecutor's Office maintains the request for six years in prison and 21 years of disqualification for Laura Borràs

The Prosecutor's Office has raised to final this Wednesday the request for a sentence for Laura Borràs for cutting up contracts worth 335,700 euros, to award them without competition to a friend, when she directed the Institute of Catalan Letters (ILC): the public ministry asks for her 6 years in prison and 21 years of disqualification.

She has substantially lowered, however, the request for a sentence for the computer scientist who benefited from the contracts, Isaías Herrero, who incriminated Borràs during the oral hearing.

On the last day of the trial that has seated the leader of Junts per Catalunya and suspended president of Parliament on the bench, the Prosecutor's Office has reeled off the bouquet of indications and evidence that, according to what it has said, prove Borràs' fraudulent practices between 2013 and 2018, when he was in charge of the ILC,

a public body dependent on the Generalitat.

The indictment attributes one crime of prevarication and another of falsehood to him, and considers it proven that he abused minor contracts without public competition to benefit Isaías Herrero.

In turn, the Prosecutor's Office lowers the request for a sentence for Herrero from six to two years in prison, after having admitted his participation in the events and having declared that Borràs made him an "undercover contract."

The prosecutor's request for a third defendant, Andreu P., who confessed to having had a tangential participation in the events, is also reduced from three years to 14 months in jail.

Borràs faces, in addition to a possible prison sentence, a fine of 144,000 euros, while his confessed accomplices see the request for a sanction from the Prosecutor's Office significantly reduced: from 72,000 euros to 2,100, in the case of the computer scientist;

and from 30,000 euros to 2,250 for the other collaborator.

During her final presentation, the prosecutor has tried to show that, while she directed the ILC, Borràs applied "the minor hiring system on a recurring basis to give work to Mr. Herrero."

The leader of Junts had denied in her statement that she had had any intention of benefiting her acquaintance, and argued that if Herrero took over various computer orders it was because of his good technological knowledge: "He was a digital artist, a creator,” she said.

"The minor contract is an exception," said the prosecutor, citing the regulations on public sector contracts.

Nothing to do with what, according to the indictment, the defendant did, by dividing a single contract into 18 minor contracts — to avoid the public tender and be able to award them by hand — which reported 335,700 euros to her acquaintance.

The representative of the public ministry has highlighted that Borràs herself highlighted that the creation of an ILC website —object of the contract— was a major work and that, therefore, this commission should never have been broken up, but the project should have been tendered as a whole.

Herrero endorsed the prosecution's thesis during the trial: Borràs, the computer scientist confessed, made him an "undercover contract" to develop the website of the Generalitat body that promotes literature in Catalan, and that contract was divided into minor works to be able to assign them by finger.

That confession made it clear that Herrero had closed an agreement with the Prosecutor's Office to ensure a reduction in sentences.

The public ministry defends that this disclosure has been "essential" to unravel the ball of "false budgets" and tricky awards made by the current president of Junts in the position she held before making the leap into active politics.

Borràs directed the ILC until 2018, when the then

, Quim Torra, appointed her as Minister of Culture of his Government.

The leader then undertook a rapid career that enthroned her as a benchmark of the most exalted independence movement.

In her statement before the court last Monday, Borràs maintained —as she has been doing since the investigation began— that this trial responds to political persecution for her defiance of State institutions.

The prosecutor has refuted that thesis today: "Nothing could be further from reality", she said, noting that the president of Junts "disregarded the trust of citizens" by acting outside the regulations and that she did so knowingly: "She was aware that what she was doing, she was alerted to it.”

Borràs' defense lawyer, Gonzalo Boye, has started his turn of conclusions with a harsh plea about the alleged vices that the process drags.

"There has been a violation of fundamental rights from the beginning," Boye said, before directly accusing the president of the court, Jesús María Barrientos.

"The right to an impartial judge has been violated," he stated.

The lawyer has tried to argue that the independence leader has been deprived of a fair trial because "a story has been generated that takes guilt for granted."

“It has gone from 'Go for them!'

to the 'Go for her! ”, he has affirmed.

In her last turn to speak, which lasted 16 minutes, Borràs introduced herself as "President of Parliament" -although she has been suspended from that position since last July, when her prosecution for corruption offenses was confirmed-, and has declared himself the victim of “political persecution” once again.

“I am the president of the Parliament and I have served with total dedication until this cause separated me from it by those who, being politicians, acted as judges before you.

You, who are judges, still have the opportunity to do justice, ”she said, addressing the court.

The president of Junts has been accompanied in this last session of the trial by some officials from her party —the general secretary, Jordi Turull, and the president of the parliamentary group, Albert Batet, who has been joined by the former

of the Generalitat Quim Torra— but no member of the ERC, the CUP or the Catalan government.

You can follow EL PAÍS Catalunya on

Subscribe to continue reading

Read without limits

Keep reading

I'm already a subscriber