The defense of José Antonio Griñán, who was sentenced with six years in prison for continued embezzlement and prevarication in the case of the ERE of Andalusia, has requested its absolution to the Supreme Court alleging, among other reasons, that the former president of the Junta de Andalucía had no responsibilities in this Government until April 2004, years after the aid granting mechanism was created that the Provincial Court of Seville convicted of criminal. has also loaded against the comptroller of the Board, who did not object to the subsidy system and whose actions He did not deserve any criminal reproach.
The Supreme hosts from this Wednesday a public viewing for this case, which was sentenced more than two years ago and who sentenced 19 positions of the Junta de Andalucía of the total of 21 who sat on the bench, among others, the former presidents of the Board Jose Antonio Grinan and Manuel Chavez for the diversion of almost 700 million of public money.
was judged the procedure through which the Andalusian Government funded their grants autonomous for early retirement of employment regulation files (ERE) that were fraudulent or unnecessary and direct and supposedly arbitrary aid to companies. In addition to defending the condemned, they intervene – to defend the confirmation of convictions– the Supreme Court Prosecutor’s Office and the prosecution brought on behalf of the P.P.
Sentence “deeply misguided”
In general, the lawyers who have intervened in the first day of the hearing, which will conclude this Thursday (with the interventions of the defense of Manuel Chaves and the accusations) have described the judgment of more than 1,800 pages dictated on his day “dark”, full of contradictions and difficult to understand, as well as “deeply misguided”.
Among the legal reproaches, that those who allegedly benefit from the misappropriation committed by those responsible for the Autonomous Communities were not identified and brought to trial in order to impose sentences for this conduct. Also that, to build her story, the instructor mercedes alaya mixed administrative acts with the action of the Andalusian Parliament, which was the body that ultimately approved the budget provisions that were later branded as criminal.
The lawyer Jose Maria Calerodefender of Griñán, was the sixth to intervene before a Chamber made up of the magistrates Juan Ramón Berdugo, will be Ana María Ferrer, Carmen Lamela, Susana Polo and Eduardo Porreswho will be the rapporteur of the sentence issued by the high court and will suppose the final bolt to a matter that began its judicial journey eleven years ago with the instruction of Judge Mercedes Alaya.
“Griñán did not look away”
According to this lawyer, the proven facts do not establish that Griñán was made aware of the existence of the aid granting system when he came to the Board after being a regional deputy. What is found, according to his defense, is that there had already been three budget laws that had converted the controversial item destined for these aids into formal law. : “He did not look the other way, everything that the Intervention suggested became law”the lawyer has affirmed.
In this sense, he has denied his involvement because of at least three of the five actions that, according to the Seville Court, made up the criminal core – granting of subsidies and approved agreements -, his client had nothing to do with it. He limited himself to raising the bills, which was not an administrative act, but “a pre-legislative activity“, and always with the endorsement of the intervention.
Regarding embezzlement, Griñán’s defense has insisted that the sentence does not describe this crime, it only indicates that the money was allocated for purposes other than those included in the budget sheets, “but they could also be public”. Nor is it possible to identify, according to the defense, any profit motive of the former president, who was responsible for Employment when the events occurred.
On the other hand, the defense asks the Supreme Court to modify certain proven facts of the lower court ruling that are erroneous and to introduce new ones, such as the fact that the money allegedly diverted by Griñán did not amount to more than one 0.3 percent of the total Andalusian budgets. In the opinion of this lawyer, “all the possible pathologies of the macro-trials are increased in this case.”
Before Griñán’s defense, those of other senior officials intervened, such as former Employment Counselor Antonio Fernándezthe former Minister of Innovation, Science and Business Francisco Vallejo or whatever Deputy Minister of Economy and Finance Carmen Martínez Aguayo. The arguments are also developed in an afternoon session until the hearing is completed tomorrow.
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The session was set less than two months before the Andalusian elections advanced to June 19 by the president of the Board, Juan Manuel Moreno Bonilla. I will be They burst in like this in the middle of the Andalusian pre-campaign and surely they will give arguments to the different formations that attend the elections, which under normal circumstances should have taken place at the end of the year.
the future sentence will not be known foreseeably until well after the electoral contestdue to the complexity of the case – with about twenty appellants – and also to the well-known way of working of the Supreme Court, which does not usually adopt decisions of political importance if they coincide with electoral periods.