Former President of the Junta de Andalucía José Antonio Grinán arrives in court in Seville May 18, 2023.
The court of Seville has decided to stay for five years the execution of the six-year prison sentence imposed on the former president of the Andalusian government, José Antonio Griñán, for embezzlement in the ERE case because of the cancer he suffers. The 77-year-old former socialist leader will therefore not go to prison to serve this sentence.
Griñán’s defense requested on December 22 that the court stay the execution of his sentence, citing Article 80.4 of the Criminal Code, which states that “judges and courts may grant a stay of a sentence without fulfilling a requirement to do so must be carried out once the sentence has been imposed The prisoner suffers from a very serious illness with incurable conditions.” The judges, acting on the request of the former Andalusian president, argue in their decision that the granting of this benefit “is at the discretion of the judge or court ‘ and they point out that ‘there is a need for discretion in this area’. In addition, the prisoner was suffering “from a very serious illness with incurable conditions”.
In this sense, the judges of the First Section of the Seville Court refer to the last report of the coroner of June 15, in which she advised against his confinement to prison because of the “serious and incurable illness”. “The court, in cases such as this, which relate to medical issues, is subject to the technical criteria of the expert in the matter, whose knowledge is essential to deciding the merits of the legal issues raised,” the order said Conclusion that “this court can therefore only agree to a stay of imprisonment for a period of five years in the light of the opinion of the coroner, an expert in this field”. The letter also stresses that neither the anti-corruption prosecutor’s office nor the private prosecution exercised by the PP have objected to Griñán’s request for a suspended sentence.
Point and continued to wait for the constitution
This decision opens a judicial process to avoid jail time that the former Andalusian President began on November 19, 2019, when the Provincial Court of Seville published its verdict and sentenced him to six years in prison for embezzlement – a crime for which he is on acquittal hoped – and 15 years disqualification for subterfuge for his involvement in the conspiracy to fraudulently aid the Junta de Andalucía. Griñán appealed the verdict to the Supreme Court, which upheld his verdict on July 26, 2022. His defense later filed an annulment motion in the same court and appealed to the Constitutional Court, while his family asked the government for a partial pardon to postpone enforcement of the sentence, but provincial court judges on December 22 gave 10 days until the seven former senior officials sentenced to prison terms, including Griñán, must be sent to prison in accordance with their respective sentences.
At that time, the President of the Chamber requested that his sentence be suspended under Article 80.4 of the Criminal Code, on the grounds that he had prostate cancer and had been prescribed radiotherapy incompatible with his stay in prison. A diagnosis that the coroner confirmed in her first interview with Griñán last January and that the public prosecutor and the PP assumed. As the judges recalled in their car, the court then decided to stay their assignment to prison until they completed their medical treatment. When this was completed last May, the coroner was asked for a new report on the development of the former Andalusian leader, to determine whether the new treatment (pharmacological treatment and rehabilitation exercises) introduced after completion of radiotherapy was compatible with his confinement to prison. After an initial report that the anti-corruption department found inconclusive, the last one made it clear that it would be advisable for Griñán not to go to jail, since he was suffering from a “serious and incurable disease” described in Article 80.4 of the Criminal Code required parameters Code for its application.
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However, the former CEO continues to maintain his innocence and awaits the decision of the Constitutional Court on his appeal. In December, the former president assumed he was going to jail and admitted he was already a prisoner in his own home, which he barely left after the Supreme Court upheld his verdict, despite being hampered by the reporting and attrition in the media. Personal and defamatory for a case whose investigation began 14 years ago.
Griñán is the only one of the eight former senior officials convicted of embezzlement — with the exception of former labor director Juan Márquez, whose prison sentence was suspended by the Seville court after his sentence was reduced to three years by the Supreme Court — that he is did not go to prison to serve his sentence. Former Deputy Labor Minister Agustín Barberá, who is suffering from cancer, also asked for his sentence to be suspended because of a “very serious illness”, but the judges did not grant his request and on April 11 he was jailed.
Barberá has requested the third-degree prison sentence, a situation that former Andalusian Labor Minister José Antonio Viera, 77, has been enjoying since June 9, who was granted that prison benefit five months after he was sent to prison. prison, drawing attention to the cancer he is also suffering from.