Corruption trial on former president Pujol and family to start in November next year

Spain's National Court will start the trial against the former Catalan president, Jordi Pujol, and his family on November 10, 2025, as announced on Thursday.

The family and 16 more people are facing an alleged corruption trial accused of unlawful assembly, money laundering, crimes against the tax office, and forging documents.

Pujol and his seven children will be part of the trial, spanning 55 sessions until April 23, 2026. Jordi Pujol's wife, Marta Ferrusola, was also under investigation and passed away on July 8, 2024.

Jordi Pujol has been the longest-serving Catalan president in modern times. The court says that the family benefited from the patriarch's post to get contracts from the Catalan government.

The corruption case has been ongoing since July 2014, when the former president admitted he and his family had money abroad not declared in Spain's tax office.

Spain’s National Court indicted Pujol and his relatives in April 2021, including his wife Marta Ferrusola and their seven children. Charges against Ferrusola were later dropped for health reasons months before she passed away.

Spain's National Court prosecution office is asking for nine years in prison for Jordi Pujol and between 8 and 29 for his seven children and the ex-wife of the eldest son, Mercè Gironés.

The public prosecutor is requesting 29 years behind bars for Jordi Pujol Ferrusola (the son) and for Mercè Gironés up to 17 years. As well as 14 years for Josep Pujol Ferrusola and 8 for his remaining siblings: Pere, Oleguer, Oriol, Mireia, and Marta. The dozen businesspeople under investigation are facing up to 5 years each.

Family "took advantage" of Pujol's position

In July 2020, the judge who led the investigation in Spain's National Court, José de la Mata, said he believed the family formed a criminal organization and, in a 509-page document, concluded that there was no solid evidence to prove that the Pujols' wealth came from inheriting the grandfather and banker Florenci Pujol's fortune, as the former politician had originally claimed in July 2014.

The April 2021 indictment stated the family had behaved as an illicit association or criminal organization due to their coordinated actions including simultaneously opening and closing bank accounts abroad as well as transferring funds between them in a strategy aimed at concealing the origin of the funds.

The court said that the family "took advantage of Pujol's position at the head of the Catalan government from which they obtained significant economic returns, which were deposited in bank accounts abroad and subjected to various transfers and transmissions, to hide their illicit origin."

Tainted political legacy

Jordi Pujol, aged 94, was the longest-serving president in Catalonia’s democratic history, but his mammoth political legacy was tainted by subsequent corruption scandals.

First appointed president in 1980, Pujol was reelected in five consecutive elections and ruled uninterrupted until 2003, leading Catalonia from Spain's democratic transition to the new millennium.

Pujol was also the founder of Convergència Democràtica de Catalunya (CDC), for years Catalonia’s hegemonic center-right party, until corruption scandals and tensions caused by the independence bid led to its dissolution, with its offspring dispersed between Junts per Catalunya and PDeCAT parties, among others.