It was said that Eduardo Zaplana always landed on his feet, and that he had the ability to dodge all the complaints and suspicions that have been leveled at him throughout his long political career. However, the former Valencian minister and former president is having difficulties with his accusation in the Erial case being tried in Valencia. Because some of those also accused would be negotiating with the Anti-Corruption Prosecutor’s Office an agreement to avoid prison in exchange for acknowledging facts that focus on the alleged collection of bribes in the ITV and wind farm concessions in 1997.
For these events, the prosecution is asking for 19 years in prison against Eduardo Zaplana, who would have pocketed almost 20 million euros in bribes. He is accused of the crimes of criminal organization, money laundering, bribery, prevarication and document falsification. Along with him there are 14 other defendants. Four of them could be negotiating a solution to see their sentence reduced and avoid prison: Vicente and José Cotino, nephews of the former minister and former Director General of the Police, Juan Cotino, and businessmen from the Sedesa firm; the figurehead and childhood friend Joaquín Barceló and his former chief of staff in the Generalitat Valenciana, Juan Francisco García.
The Cotino brothers are accused of paying around ten million euros in commissions, through Asedes Capital (parent of the Sedesa Group) to the Zaplana network for the awarding of the ITV concessions and the Wind Plan. Barceló is the person who appears as the owner of bank accounts in tax havens and in companies allegedly used to repatriate funds to Spain and allocate them to real estate investments and other types of financial operations. Juan Francisco García would have been the key player in managing and channeling the commissions through intermediary companies.
In fact, yesterday the defenses of the four accused did not make any request to the Chamber on the first day of preliminary questions, which fuels the suspicion that they are preparing a recognition or confession of guilt after agreement with the Prosecutor’s Office. This was not the case with the rest of the defenses, including that of Zaplana himself, who raised two key issues that the court rejected: that the so-called “Money Junkie papers” were not accepted as evidence and that the court inhibited itself in favor of of the National Court. Both were rejected by the court.
Most of the defenses of the main defendants in the Erial case questioned the agreement reached between the Anti-Corruption Prosecutor’s Office and the Uruguayan lawyer Fernando Belhot, considered a front man and administrator of funds and properties that really belonged to Eduardo Zaplana and his circle of closest collaborators.
The initiative in this matter was taken by the lawyer of Francisco Grau, the considered “financier” of the alleged corrupt plot and friend of Zaplana, who insisted that “Belhot, despite having made a self-incriminating statement, is not listed as being investigated.” “, and asked that his testimony be expelled from the process.
The Uruguayan lawyer Fernando Belhot, whom investigators place in the summary of the Erial case as the front man of the network that Eduardo Zaplana apparently directed to manage the money from the alleged bribes after the privatization of the Valencian ITV, told the judge that The former minister and former president of the Generalitat Valenciana with the PP was the owner of the money.
During a statement before the court investigating the case, the lawyer acknowledged that he met Zaplana in 2009 and that during the years in which he was managing the funds of the shell companies he gave him about 2.3 million euros, from different accounts. . Furthermore, in recent months he has facilitated the recovery of 6.5 million euros from this alleged corrupt plot.
Francisco Grau’s lawyer – who is being asked for a sentence of 8 years in prison in this case – insisted that “our legislation does not contemplate any agreement for total exoneration”, and has considered that – with Belhot’s status as a witness, instead of the processed – “incriminating evidence is being purchased.”
In his response, the prosecutor said that “the court may or may not believe a certain statement, but there is no provision for the expulsion of his testimony.” Furthermore, he added that “the agreement reached does not say that Zaplana has to be investigated nor is he asked to testify against anyone,” and reiterated his collaboration in the recovery of funds supposedly obtained illicitly.
Francisco Grau is credited with an essential participation in the corporate structure designed for the return of illicit funds. Like Barceló and Zaplana, he spent nearly nine months in preventive detention.
