From the left, the IGAE expert and Jesús Emilio Torrejón Puchol in the trial against Camps this Wednesday.
Jesús Emilio Torrejón Puchol, director general of the Attorney General’s Office of the Valencian Generalitat at the time of President Francisco Camp, exploded this Wednesday. “I am outraged!” he repeated several times before the regional court, which is indicting the former PP boss and 25 other people for their alleged involvement in the Belt case. During his appearance as an expert in the oral hearing, which has already included 37 sessions since it began last January, Torrejón Puchol explained that in 2010 the popular administration had commissioned him to prepare an ad hoc report to counter the conclusions of the surrounded investigators Government of the camps. A document that, he assured, was intended for “internal use” and that should not have been included in a judicial summary – which eventually happened, as several defenses introduced it as exculpatory evidence.
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Torrejón Puchol’s statement has raised some expectations in recent weeks. The former high-ranking official in the Camps government, a career civil servant who currently works as a lawyer for the Generalitat, sent a letter to the National Court on September 12 demanding that his summons be quashed. In his text he stated that he did not want to testify and reported on the maneuvers of the PP executive to counter the reports about the Belt case. “I remember in the presidential environment they tried to give a forceful response […]as this (as I was informed) resulted in a bad image of the institution which damaged its reputation,” he said.
In response to questions from the Anti-Corruption Prosecutor’s Office, Puchol explained this Wednesday that he had received the order to prepare a counter-report and had assigned the task to the “Generalitat Attorney General”, his hierarchical superior, who explained this in a press conference on April 30, 2010 a report by researchers that had come to light as “biased.” But on whose orders was the Attorney General acting? “I know that the lawyer has a lot of contact with the presidency. I don’t know if the attorney general has spoken to the president [Camps]. “I have the impression that there was a lot of unrest around the Palau de la Generalitat… and she had information about that situation,” she told the judges.
This counter-report from Torrejón, dated May 3, 2010, accused the Legal Aid Unit of a “lack of rigor” and a “high degree of subjectivity”; He added that his conclusions were based “on mere conjecture” without “documentary support”; and attributed to him a “never proven obsession with splitting contracts or doubling payments.” Despite these harsh accusations, the former general manager admitted that he had prepared his analysis without having access to the contracts he defended. All he had was a “copy” of the report to contradict.
—Do you still confirm what is in your report? – asked the Anti-Corruption Prosecutor Torrejón Puchol this Wednesday.
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-Yes.
—Without having seen the contracts, are you still defending the legality of the contracts and that they are adjusted to the price? – the ministry has emphasized, which does not add any value to the analysis of the former director general.
“What I wrote in 2010 is my opinion,” he defended himself.
—But with what expertise do you come to these conclusions?
—I have analyzed the legal basis set out in this letter, [en referencia al informe de los investigadores del caso Gürtel], and I think they are controversial from a legal perspective. I analyzed the legal conclusions conceptually.
On May 5, 2010, two days after the signing, the Generalitat of Camps sent this counter-report to the courts. According to Torrejón Puchol without his consent. “I was not told to write a document and send it to a court. After I did it, it was mentioned to me, but I didn’t understand and protested. Never [di autorización para incorporar este informe]. “It was for internal use.” Have you received any guidelines on this? “No,” explained the former director general, emphasizing that in his view the aim at that time was to have “legal weapons” so that government members could defend themselves in public appearances.
Surcharges up to 200%
This Wednesday, alongside Torrejón, a technician from the General Intervention of the State Administration (IGAE), which is dependent on the Ministry of Finance, appeared to prepare reports on the Belt plot. According to investigators, the Generalitat Valenciana favored the corrupt network led by Francisco Correa with contracts: contracts were chopped up in order to be awarded without competition. The IGAE expert confirms this: “One company [de Correa]Orange Market, managed the entire act and then split it up and divided it among multiple companies.”
The technician described a number of irregularities discovered: absence of administrative documents; “Offers without a check-in date”; and exorbitant profit margins on the property. “A margin of 25% would be high but acceptable,” the expert began, pointing out that the documents show that on average they “doubled the price.” “The average is 100% or 120%. But there are times when [el sobreprecio] It’s up to 200%.”
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