The Anti-Corruption Prosecutor’s Office does not recognize the “honesty and honesty” mentioned in the request for pardon of the former president of the Junta de Andalucía, José Antonio Griñán, sentenced to six years in prison for prevarication and embezzlement of public funds in the case of the ERE, and points out that the facts “cannot go without a punitive response” through the partial commutation of the prison.
The opposition to this grace measure also affects seven other former senior officials convicted of embezzlement in the framework of this macro-case, which meant a hole of more than 700 million euros in the Andalusian coffers through an illegal network of aid concessions. intended for employment that were intended for other purposes.
The position of Anti-Corruption has been made known today through a letter sent to the Court of Seville in which this issue was addressed.
“The purposes of retribution, prevention and rehabilitation of sentences do not justify, nor do they allow, the granting of a partial pardon,” adds the letter, since it considers that the “honesty and trustworthiness” of Griñán, who presents himself as merit in the request, when he has been convicted of the “most serious crimes committed within the Public Administration” and in its execution “a flagrant breach of probity in the exercise of public function” is evident.
He has indicated that embezzlement tends to make possible society’s confidence in the “honest management” of public funds and understands that “it should not be forgotten that during the mandate of the accused in the charges already detailed, budgetary credits were available for the granting of illegal aid for an amount greater than 427 million”.
After examining the arguments of the pardon request, “supported by reasons of justice and equity”, the Anti-Corruption Prosecutor’s Office understands that they are not related to the nature and purpose of the pardon.
He has stated that the crimes subject to conviction do not require their own economic enrichment and that none of the sentences include the presence of delays in time taking into account the temporal extension and complexity of the facts.
He recalled that the Supreme Court states that embezzlement is another form of political corruption and points out that the correct understanding of the crime of administrative prevarication can only be carried out from a democratic conception of public power.
“Political and administrative corruption and the diversion of power are incompatible with a democratic State of law, in which principles such as equality before the law, control of public power, impartiality and correctness in administrative action must prevail” , he states.
Let’s remember that Griñán avoided going to prison, as did the rest of his colleagues convicted of the crime of embezzlement, by suffering from prostate cancer that made confinement “incompatible” with receiving adequate and necessary medical treatment. It was from the Institute of Forensic Medicine that a letter was issued “advising against” compliance with this sentence, although it was at the expense of knowing the patient’s evolution from time to time.
Since it became known in November 2011 that the Seville Court considered the socialist guilty in the ERE case, his lawyer developed a resource strategy in order for another verdict to be issued at a higher instance. In August 2022, the Supreme Court agreed with the provincial court while the former leader’s family was preparing the request for partial pardon that they would present at the beginning of September.
