BarcelonaVist for judgment. This is how the trial against the ex-vice president and ex-Minister of Economy of the PP government Rodrigo Rato ended this Friday, after six months of oral hearings and more than 50 sessions. The ex-politician has sat in the dock for the allegedly illicit origin and the management of his personal wealth. Specifically, he is facing a request from the Anticorruption Prosecutor’s Office for 63 years in prison for eleven tax crimes, money laundering and business corruption. Accusations that Rato has called “artificial” from the first minute. In fact, this Friday Rato once again accused prosecutor Elena Lorente of drawing up an “improper” accusation.
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In this Friday’s session, the last one before the magistrate of the case, Ángela Acevedo, has left the case for sentencing, who was also managing director of the International Monetary Fund (IMF), pointed out the former minister of Finance Cristóbal Montoro, as well as the former Minister of Justice Rafael Catalá, both of the PP. In particular, Rato has pointed out that as a result of the case opened against the office Equipo Económico, which Montoro founded, he has been able to learn that he has been immersed in this judicial procedure due to the arrangements that were made within the ministry when he was directed by Montoro.
“We are here because last April 15, 2015, Rafael Catalá declared in an interview with Efe that I had accepted the fiscal regularization [amnistia fiscal], a fact that could only be known through the Ministry of Finance. We are here because on April 16, 2015, the same day that I was arrested, once again, Felipe Martínez Rico [cap del gabinet de Montoro] write him an email [al ministre] in which he assures “We are doing well to demonstrate that the tax amnesty has served as an incentive for the Tax Agency to focus investigations of tax fraud and that, from the subsequent investigation, an accusation may even result tax crime”, said Rato.
After that, Rato indicated that these communications are the reason why he is sitting in the dock: “Both I and my family have been subjected to a very painful and very long procedure”, he regretted, adding that “anyone who crossed my path was made to suffer, like the rest of the accused.”
From 2004 to 2007 Rato held the presidency of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and from the end of 2010 to May 2012 he was president of Bankia. The alleged crimes would have been committed during these two professional stages. For his time at the head of the bank, Rato was already sentenced to four and a half years in prison for misappropriation in the case of the cards black.
2024-05-17 16:54:29
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