Francisco Camps, former president of the Generalitat Valenciana, upon his arrival at the National Court this Wednesday. FERNANDO VILLAR (EFE)
Francisco Camps, former president of the Generalitat Valenciana, faces this Thursday the second round of his interrogation as a defendant in the trial on his alleged involvement in the
Gürtel case
, which is being held at the National Court.
In the twelfth session of the oral hearing, the former leader of the PP will navigate familiar waters and answer questions from his defense, after this Wednesday he faced questions from the Anti-Corruption Prosecutor's Office.
For almost three hours, the public prosecutor launched himself in search of the contradictions of the politician, whom the main leaders of the plot (Francisco Correa, Pablo Crespo and Álvaro Pérez, alias El Bigotes) point out as the entryway of the
corrupt
network in the community.
Relationship with El Bigotes and Correa.
Camps tried this Wednesday to completely disassociate himself from the leaders of the plot.
He stated that, before the scandal broke out, he did not know "who" Correa and Crespo were, and that he only had a "professional" relationship with Álvaro Pérez (he was the one who organized the events of the Valencian PP).
But, when questioned, Anticorruption put on the table that the former president coincided with Correa at the weddings of the daughter of José María Aznar and Álvaro Pérez himself —the popular leader then shielded himself that they were only in the same building, but that they did not maintain contact—;
and he remembered that they both met in a hotel in Madrid.
"It was only two minutes" and "I don't remember it," Camps defended himself, who saw how the Prosecutor's Office, to demonstrate the close relationship he had with El Bigotes,
The accusation maintains that the former president facilitated Álvaro Pérez, due to the friendship they had, "access to senior positions of the [regional] Administration with decision-making power" in the awarding of public contracts, which followed his orders to rig awards in favor of from the corrupt network.
To demonstrate this close relationship, he also stressed this Wednesday that El Bigotes had the phone number of the Valencian president and his wife, and that they spoke affectionately and about personal issues.
"Millions of people had my phone," Camps shielded himself.
Entry way to the Generalitat.
In its indictment, Anti-Corruption emphasizes that the former head of government "facilitated Pérez's access to senior positions in the regional administration."
But Camps denies it.
Specifically, he did so after the prosecutor Concepción Nicolás asked him if he mediated for El Bigotes to meet Juan Cotino, de
facto
coordinator of the foundation that organized the visit of Benedict XVI to Valencia in June 2006, in which he diverted funds in favor of the Gürtel.
But the public ministry has recalled that the ruling of the National Court itself on this irregular award considered "accredited" that the then president "put Cotino in contact" with Pérez, after Correa ordered El Bigotes to speak with Camps about it.
campaign events.
When influencing the alleged relationship of the then president with the plot, the prosecutor has highlighted that Gürtel's companies organized the events of the Camps electoral campaign in 2007, and of the Valencian party in 2008. It was then that the former leader of the PP has He alleged that they were imposed on him by the national leadership of the formation, and that he did not know anything about who was behind those events.
However, the leaders of the plot explained in their statements that, by then, they had practically broken with Genoa 13 after Mariano Rajoy assumed the leadership of the party to replace Aznar.
Precisely, Correa and Pérez detailed that it was precisely this distancing that caused them to disembark in the Valencian Community.
In the first row, the then president Camps;
and behind, Vicente Rambla talks with Álvaro Pérez (from behind), at a convention of the Valencian PP in 2008.CARLES FRANCESC
This is how El Bigotes explained it: “[It was] when the PP lost the elections [in 2004] and Rajoy took over.
Correa already had some problems in the PP, and I had some discrepancy with Rajoy's press officer.
I was not happy.
In a hotel in Madrid, I met Camps, we talked for a while and I told him.
And it was the first time that he suggested that I go to Valencia to work ”.
"The first commitment that Camps acquires with me is that, when I arrive in Valencia, he gives me the events of the party, despite the fact that he had an order from the national PP not to contract anything," he adds in a confession letter that he sent to the court.
The picture.
By clearing balloons about the organization of the acts of their electoral campaigns and attributing all responsibility to the national PP, the Prosecutor's Office has questioned that Camps did not care about them.
“Did they explain to you why they had chosen them, [in reference to the companies in the plot]?
It is that we are talking about the image of him as a candidate, ”asked the representative of the public ministry.
The president has defended himself like this: "I have not worried about my image in my life."
However, in another session of the trial, one of his counselors projected a different idea of him: “Camps, like all presidents, are very jealous of themselves.
And my only concern was that if I was in the video once, he had to be in ten.
Because, if not, he would be angry with me, ”said Manuel Cervera, who held the Generalitat Health portfolio.
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