The expectation is maximum. Because never before in his life had Eduardo Zaplana been in the difficult situation of testifying before a court accused of serious crimes that could land him in prison. But today, for the first time, he will be questioned in the trial that began two weeks ago for the Erial case. He is accused of having collected bribes of 20 million euros when he was Valencian president in the ITV and wind farm concessions. He faces a request for a sentence of 19 years in prison for the crimes of criminal organization, money laundering, bribery, prevarication and document falsification.
The former minister was arrested six years ago, and spent several months in prison, in the middle of an investigation in which former president Luís Olivas is also accused. Zaplana will testify today without knowing the content of the agreement between four other key defendants in this case with the prosecution: his former chief of staff in the Generalitat Valenciana, Juan Francisco García; the front man and childhood friend Joaquín Barceló and Juan’s nephews, the Cotino brothers, Vicente and José Cotino. One fact: during the investigation Zaplana never wanted to testify before the judge.
The trial began two weeks ago but was suspended for the Easter holidays. In the first session, Zaplana’s defense tried to annul the evidence known as “the Syrian papers” or “road map”, documents that were found by chance in a home that had been owned by Marcos’ first lawyer. Benavent, known as the “Money Junkie.” These papers were delivered by a Syrian citizen who found them by chance, and they allowed the investigation against Eduardo Zaplana to begin; against the former Valencian president José Luis Olivas and against thirteen other people who sit in the dock as of today. The court rejected another request from the former minister’s lawyer: that the Chamber recuse itself so that the National Court can prosecute them.
The origin of the illicit funds that Zaplana supposedly managed is in the contests that the Generalitat launched to privatize the ITV and in the concessions of wind farms, which were designed with “subjective conditions” so that certain companies won the tenders “to the detriment from other competitors”, always according to the prosecutor. One of the beneficiaries was the family of the deceased Juan Cotino. And for this to be possible, the necessary conditions were created in the “highest level political bodies.”
The former minister was arrested on May 22, 2018. The origin of the Erial case is found in five typewritten sheets that were found by a Syrian citizen who had rented a home that had been owned by Zaplana. This citizen gave these sheets, full of deletions, to Marcos Benavent, known as the “money junkie” and made them available to justice during his “repentant” days. On these sheets is drawn the methodology that was used to obtain the bites of the ITV concessions and wind farms. Even with the amounts that bidders had to pay in bribes to obtain these awards.
