Rajoy received bonuses from alleged illegal financing fund, says police chief

The chief of the Fiscal and Economic Crime Unit of the Spanish police (UDEF), Manuel Marocho, stated that “according to the investigation” of the Barcenas papers the president of the Spanish government, Mariano Rajoy, received illegal bonuses. He appeared on Tuesday before the commission of the Spanish Congress that’s investigating if the ruling party in Spain, the People’s Party, used a parallel bookkeeping system during many years to record undeclared and illegal cash donations and then used them to pay bonuses to senior members of the party.

Nevertheless, the chief of the UDEF pointed out that PP’s illegal financing has not yet been confirmed by the court and, therefore, he couldn’t say that senior leaders of the PP received bonuses. That’s why he added “according to the investigation”.

After four months of inactivity, the Spanish congressional committee investigating the alleged corruption of the PP reconvened on Tuesday to hear testimony from the leading researchers in the “Gurtel” case, regarding the PP's alleged illegal financing.

Existence of a “criminal organization”

The high-ranking police officers that appeared before the congressional committee confirmed the existence of “a criminal organization” that, from the 1990s until 2009, won "rigged" contract bids from public administrations that allowed the PP to create “financing mechanisms” and to pay bonuses to senior members of the party.

“Only police evidence”

The PP, which appealed to the Constitutional Court and opposed the resumption of the committee investigation into the party’s financing, stated that the chief of the UDEF only “gave his opinion” and that, despite “only having evidence” provided by police officers.  

The PP MP Carlos Rojas even went so far as to point out that the Spanish Penal Code provides sanctions for those cases in which judicial police overstep the boundaries of their work.

Rajoy’s name and initial appear in the PP’s alternate bookkeeping ledgers

The name and the initial of the president of the Spanish government appear in the so-called Barcenas papers, which are extracts of handwritten accounts in which the former treasurer of the PP Luis Bárcenas wrote down both the names of those who made donations and of the members of the party that received illegal bonuses. The Barcenas papers are one of the main sources of evidence that the Spanish judge is using to investigate the PP's “alternate” bookkeeping.       

Rajoy was called as a witness in the trial on July 26 and denied having received illegal money from the party.