Former CDC and PDeCAT officials to go to trial over '3%' corruption case

Spain's National Court will officially send former Catalan government officials to trial over the corruption case known as the '3% case'.

Last week, prosecutors requested prison sentences of up to 21 years for around 30 former political leaders and business people for illegally funding the old Convergència party, which had been in power in Catalonia for many years.

Former minister Germà Gordó, former CDC treasurers Daniel Osácar and Andreu Viloca, as well as PDeCAT and CDC itself will be sent to trial.

The anti-corruption public prosecutor's office wants to see the people who were in charge of an alleged scheme involving the old nationalist center-right party Convergència (CDC) behind bars. They are accused of rigging public tenders in exchange for commissions to fund the organization.

Prosecutors accuse those involved of the crimes of criminal organization, fraud in public administrations, corruption between individuals, influence peddling, bribery, embezzlement, and money laundering. 

Of the 30 people investigated in the case, a dozen have been given substantial reductions in the penalty request for their collaboration in the investigation. In total, prosecutors make the accusation against 30 people, including politicians and businessmen, as well as 16 legal entities, including CDC and PDeCAT.

Prosecutors are also requesting a fine of €3 million for PDeCAT as the heir of CDC. 

Spain's National Court judge José de la Mata stated in July 2020 that a structure had been set up to "illegally and covertly" finance CDC for years.

CDC governed Catalonia almost continuously from 1980 to 2015 – except for seven years from 2003 to 2010 – before it converted into center-right pro-independence PDeCAT, until its official dissolution in 2016. 

In turn, PDeCAT was a central pillar in the formation of former president Carles Puigdemont's pro-independence Junts per Catalunya platform in autumn 2017, but afterwards Junts became a party of its own right, bringing over most of the senior officials from PDeCAT, which still exists but has no parliamentary representation.

Major figures of CDC include Jordi Pujol, Catalan president from 1980 to 2003, and Artur Mas, holding the same post from 2010 to January 2016, but none of them have been included in the accusations. 

Pujol has a separate open case also pending trial for alleged corruption affecting him and his whole family.