Corruption trials have plagued the PP since 2009. The year that is now beginning includes at least 30 summaries, with investigations in the Belt, Lezo, Púnica, Erial, Taula, Tandem and others cases being completed and several dozen former popular leaders being prosecuted. The pending trials, some of which already have a start date, condemn events that occurred more than five years ago. This premature justice will be a new blow to the reputation of the conservative party, whose current leader is Alberto Núñez Feijóo. The PP's legal crossroads is summarized below.
»Belt case, 14 years later, four cases pending. On February 6, 2009, Judge Baltasar Garzón uncovered one of the most extensive corruption schemes in democracy. The network had colonized more than a dozen PP-ruled administrations in Madrid, the Valencian Community, Castile and León and Andalusia. From this investigation emerged several individual pieces that led to trials that ended in harsh prison sentences for mayors, city councilors, regional councilors and even anyone who was national treasurer. In two cases, the PP was considered a “profitable participant” because it benefited from the crimes of the corrupt network. Fifteen years later, the PP is still waiting for further rulings in connection with the case. Francisco Camps, who headed a government rife with corruption, is facing prosecutors' request for prison time in Part 5 of the Belt case, according to council members and senior officials convicted in recent years. These are manipulated contracts that management awarded to Orange Market, the Valencian subsidiary of the Belt Program. The verdict will be announced in the coming weeks or months.
Boxes b of the national PP and the Madrid PP pending trial or appeal. The Supreme Court will respond in the coming weeks to the appeals against the ruling of the National Court in the so-called Bárcenas case, box b of the PP, which financed part of the costs of the work on the headquarters in Génova, 13. This ruling blamed the former treasurer and deemed the PP subsidiary civilly liable. The party decided not to appeal the verdict, thereby admitting corruption. In the Community of Madrid there was also a Box B with which the party was illegally financed, according to the indictment against the leaders of the Esperanza Aguirre government. One of the summaries of the Púnica case deals with this box, which is up for trial along with nine other individual items.
Illegal espionage to protect the PP. kitchen suitcase. A further judicial investigation has been completed and the trial is ongoing. Former Interior Minister Jorge Fernández Díaz, his number two, Francisco Martínez, and half a dozen police commissioners are put on trial. They are all accused of carrying out an espionage operation behind the judge's back against the family of Luis Bárcenas, the former treasurer of the PP, with the intention of stealing documents that could implicate the government of Mariano Rajoy in various corruption crimes.
Former ministers Rato and Zaplana face long prison sentences. Rodrigo Rato, former economy minister and former president of Bankia, has been on the bench for weeks. The public prosecutor's office is demanding dozens of years in prison for Rato for fraud worth millions of dollars. Eduardo Zaplana, former labor minister, has been on trial since February 1st in which the public prosecutor is demanding 19 years in prison for the crimes of money laundering, bribery, falsehood and subterfuge in the Erial case.
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