Trial over alleged illegal funding of People’s Party kicks off

The sentence for the ‘Palau case’ coincided this Monday with the beginning of a trial for the alleged illegal funding of two electoral campaigns of the People’s Party (PP) between 2007 and 2008. The case hits even a former vice president of the Valencian Country. Several businesspeople have admitted taking part in a scheme that involved illegally funding the party in exchange of privileges for their companies. This structural framework is called ‘Gürtel case’, as the lead businessman of the scheme was Francisco Correa (his surname translates as ‘belt’ in English and ‘gürtel’ in German).

The prosecutor demands a 24-year prison sentence for Correa for these events, with 27 years for another businessman and 7 years and 9 months for the former vice president of the territory, Vicente Rambla. Yet this is only a branch of the ‘Gürtel case,’ with the same businesspeople being involved in other episodes of alleged illegal funding of the People’s Party. Another branch in Valencia saw Correa being sentenced to 13 years in prison and some PP officials also condemned to several years in prison.

The trial to another ‘Gürtel case’ branch was held in 2016, with even the Spanish president, Mariano Rajoy, taking part as witness. It was the first time that an active Spanish president was called for a trial. For this episode, the prosecutor demanded the People’s Party that it return 245,000 euros it illegally raised in a kickbacks for contracts scheme involving 37 business and political figures. The prosecutor also asked for a 125-year prison sentence for Correa, and more than 42 years in prison for former PP party treasurer, Luís Bárcenas. Both Correa and Bárcenas were in pre-trial prison for over a year being paying a bail.