The former vice president of the Government Rodrigo Rato has pointed out today, in the last session of the trial against him, the ministers of Economy, Finance and Justice of the Executive of Mariano Rajoy, Luis de Guindos, Cristóbal Montoro and Rafael Catalá, as those responsible for the investigation about the origin of his fortune that has led him to the bench.
Rato referred this Friday, before the court that tried him for the alleged illicit increase of his assets, to the investigation opened in a court in Tarragona against the office founded by the former Minister of Finance Cristóbal Montoro, Economic Team. The former vice president has pointed out that, thanks to what was published in the press about this case, he has learned that it was actions initiated in the Ministry of Finance when Montoro was minister that would have led him to the bench.
In the last session of the trial that began last December in the Provincial Court, Rato has made use of his right to the last word and has read several emails from Montoro’s former chief of staff that would demonstrate that months before led to the entry and search of their home and office, all of them were aware of the actions of the Tax Agency, something illegal.
“We now know why I am here,” said Rato, who has undermined the “very painful and long procedure” to which he, his family and “everyone who has crossed me” have been subjected by means of an “inappropriate” accusation.
The former managing director of the International Monetary Fund (IMF), for whom the Public Ministry is requesting 63 years in prison for tax crimes, money laundering and corruption between individuals, has accused prosecutor Elena Lorente of presenting facts against him “artificially.” complex” as the basis for an “inadmissible” accusation.
For Rato, who has read his statement in its entirety so as not to deviate from the message even one iota, his defense has been effective by presenting consistent arguments and evidence, and he considers that in this way he has exposed “the house of cards manufactured” by both the Prosecutor’s Office , as well as by the State Attorney’s Office and the National Fraud Investigation Office (ONIF), dependent on the Tax Agency.
Rato has alluded to the investigation opened against Equipo Economico, the office of former Finance Minister Cristóbal Montoro, for alleged influence peddling with the Tax Agency for the benefit of his clients in which his name has appeared.
One of the emails, dated January 21, 2015, three months before the April records, was sent by Felipe Martínez Rico, chief of staff of the Minister of Finance, to the head of the Economy, Luis de Guindos, to whom he explained that The director of the Tax Agency, Santiago Menéndez, wants to tell you about “Rato’s fiscal situation.”
Even before, in February of that year, Martínez Rico had indicated in another email to Montoro that Rato “did present Declaration 720 – of assets from abroad” – and that they had asked the Tax Agency for “the information and we are going to review the one we had prepared and we will give it to you in case there are any errors to correct.”
One day before the entry and registration, which Rato has always denounced as null and void as it was done without the necessary procedural guarantees, the then Minister of Justice, Rafael Catalá, declared in an interview with EFE that the former vice president had accepted the tax regularization , information that he could not have access to and that “he could only know through the Minister of Finance.”
On April 16, the day the searches and documents were seized, Montoro’s chief of staff wrote in another email that what happened “is good for us to demonstrate that the tax amnesty has served as a decoy for the Tax Agency.” to focus investigations of tax fraud and that the subsequent investigation may even lead to accusations of tax crimes.”
“We are here,” he added, “because on April 16, 2015, the same day I was arrested and my house and office were searched, after notifying the media, once again Felipe Martínez Rico, Chief of Staff from Minister Montoro, writes another email in which he assures that the tax amnesty has served as a decoy for the Tax Agency to focus investigations of tax fraud and that the subsequent investigation may even lead to accusations of tax crimes. “Both I and my family have been subjected to a very painful and long procedure,” he lamented, adding that “anyone who crossed” his path has also been made to suffer, for the rest of the defendants.
