The judge files the accusation against the general director who awarded the subsidies to a brother of Ximo Puig

The Court of Instruction number 4 of Valencia has filed the case opened against the general director of Language Policy of the Generalitat Valenciana, Rubén Trenzano, whom the PP accused of prevarication and embezzlement for the subsidies granted to the businessman Francis Puig, brother of the president of the Consell, Ximo Puig, and the Adell Bover brothers, former partners.

In an order dated May 10, the judge attends the request of his lawyer who considered that Trenzano had not engaged in any criminal conduct and that it had not been proven that the requirements for the granting of subsidies were not met. In the letter, the investigator states that there is insufficient evidence to maintain the accusation. In other words, the aid was legally granted.

Trenzano was already acquitted in 2021 of another complaint filed by the PP in which he accused him of alleged documentary falsification for assuring, in a letter, that public aid to the promotion of Valencian granted to two companies of Francis Puig was audited. According to the PP, that control did not exist. According to that judgment, the testimonies provided during the trial maintain that "the administrative verification of the granting of the subsidy was carried out in each of its phases (application, justification and payment) and the material verification was carried out in the justification process in which, in addition to the corresponding documentation, the hard disk was provided".

The PP filed the complaint in 2019. In this time of instruction, the judge has not called to testify to Trenzano, who has been accused during these years. The investigation has been terminated, except for the steps agreed so far, which did not include the statement of the Director General. : "Continuing the instruction having him as investigated would be as much as applying the penalty of bench," appeals the judge.

Thus, the court considers that the regional administration did not commit any crime in the granting of subsidies and that the procedure complied with the law.

The part that the judge keeps open, for the moment, is the one referring to the receipt of these aids. The instructor thus emphasizes that the pending proceedings are aimed at determining whether there was a crime of fraud of subsidies by those investigated or a possible falsification of documentation in the actions of Francis Puig or the Adell Bover brothers, "crimes in which Trenzano would have no participation, since the complaint was directed against him as director of Language Policy for an alleged lack of control in its concession, of which there is no indication," he says.

During the instruction, the court has received a report from the Civil Guard in which the agents warned: "It will not be a standard report, with conclusions." "By way of summary, several irregularities have been found that may be due to human or computer errors of mechanization and another could be in bad faith," the report also pointed out, which, in any case, did not resolve which ones can be framed in each of the typologies indicated. In the absence of concrete conclusions, the head of the court demanded from the Governments of Catalonia and the Valencian Community information on the subsidies received by the companies in which Francis Puig works and of which he is a shareholder, along with other partners.

The judge already has the report of the Generalitat of Catalonia, whose system for the control of the granting of subsidies is far from that implemented in the Generalitat Valenciana. Thus, that of Catalonia has already pointed out that the function of the Intervention of that autonomous administration focuses on a "documentary control aimed at verifying compliance with the applicable regulatory provisions and compliance with the object and purpose" and that "the contribution of invoices as a means of justification" is not required, as the Generalitat Valenciana does. "The documents carried are presumed valid and there is no evidence that during the administrative procedure there were indications of falsehood or other similar irregularity," concludes the Intervention of the Catalan Generalitat.

Now it is necessary for the Valencian regional administration to provide its report to determine if there were irregularities in the granting of these aids, between 2015 and 2018, and if there was a fraud that exceeds 120,000 euros, an amount from which it is considered a crime of subsidies.