The prosecutor asks the National Court to again accuse Brufau and Fainé against the criterion of the instructor

The Anti-Corruption Prosecutor’s Office has resorted the decision of Judge Manuel García-Castellón to exonerate Repsol and CaixaBank in the Tándem case for the hiring in 2011 of the then active commissioner José Manuel Villarejo to investigate the stock syndication agreement reached between the former president of Sacyr Luis del Rivero and the Mexican oil company Pemex.

Anticorruption wants the exoneration of the president of Repsol, Antonio Brufau, and the former president of CaixaBank Isidro Fainé, against whom -he affirms- there are indications that they knew and authorized the hiring of Villarejo, which used illegal methods to find out about Del Rivero’s plans. The businessman has also presented his own appeal before the Criminal Chamber of the National Court, coinciding in essential aspects with that of the Prosecutor’s Office.

Anticorrupción and Del Rivero consider that the closure of the investigation by García-Castellón, only 20 days after the same judge gave Repsol and CaixaBank the status of being investigated and 16 days after agreeing to extend the proceedings, is surprising and hasty.

“False closure”

It is a “false close”, argues the Prosecutor’s Office, with which the instructor has “privileged” Fainé and Brufau over other investigated ones and that it occurs, contradictorily, when procedures agreed by the judge himself were pending completion, such as the delivery of documentation on the hiring of Villarejo requested from Repsol.

Among those pending proceedings were also the statements of those responsible for regulatory compliance at Repsol and Caixa. For the Prosecutor’s Office, it cannot be affirmed, as the instructor does, that both companies had effective crime prevention and compliance systems in place when, on the one hand, those responsible for that area have not been questioned and when, on the other, It is just the opposite: there is indications of non-compliance with the regulations of the entities.

The prosecutor maintains that Villarejo’s hiring did not comply with Repsol’s standards, the expense was divided so that it could be authorized by the head of security and false concepts were recorded in the invoices to cover up the real order that he was going to investigate Del Rivero.

Thus, contrary to what García-Castellón affirms, Anticorrupción maintains that the controls established at Repsol were not adequate and effective at that time. And if regulatory breaches were detected, they were ignored.

Similarly, CaixaBank did not enter into a written contract for the provision of services by Villarejo and there is no record that the expense was previously ratified by the purchasing desk or that it received any documentation about the order, contrary to what that indicated the norms of the entity.

“Behind the back of the victim and the prosecutor”

For his part, the defender of Luis del Rivero, Jaime Campaner, affirms in a strong appeal that the process has been filed for Repsol, CaixaBank, Brufau and Fainé “behind the back of the victim and the prosecutor.”

Neither the private prosecution nor the public prosecution have been able to examine or contradict the filing requests or the documentation presented by the defenses and on which García-Castellón relied.

In his opinion, the instruction is far from exhausted. In addition, it is “incongruous” that on July 13 the judge extended the investigation with the argument that “it had not yet fulfilled its purposes in response to the volume of the intervened documentation and the complexity of its analysis and assessment” and that on July 29 heed the request of the defenses to file.

“There is no reason to rush. Nor is it possible to appeal to the potential reputational damage, as this is not included among the legal grounds for dismissal, nor can it be expedited, “says the appeal.

It considers that the right to the presumption of innocence of those investigated, “fully guaranteed and intact to date, cannot become a kind of right to ‘presume’ innocent or enjoy summer relief. The judicial body must be exclusively at the results of the instruction and only subject to the rule of law, without regard to what occurs outside of that or dedicate themselves to assessing extra-procedural repercussions or trying to remedy them through an anticipated crisis of the procedure with respect to the most publicly exposed subjects “.

For the defense of the former president of Sacyr, “it is unknown, as it is not explained, what has actually changed since the instructor decided to investigate Brufau and Fainé on April 14 and Repsol and CaixaBank on July 8 and the day of the issuance of the dismissal order [29 de julio]”.

The appeal states that, contrary to what the investigating judge maintains, Fainé and Brufau have not been investigated for their charges but because “there are indications that they gave the respective hiring orders and closely monitored the criminal investigation carried out by Villarejo.”

“There are multiple and very varied indications that point to the relevant and essential participation of the President of Repsol in the hiring of the acting commissioner Villarejo to obtain the rupture of the Pemex-Sacyr pact without sparing illicit methods, from the very hiring of the said public official even the criminal intrusion into Del Rivero’s privacy, “he says.

Among these indications are the statements made by the security chiefs in charge of hiring the ex-commissioner, the audios that he surreptitiously recorded with them and the notes from Villarejo’s agenda, in which it is mentioned that the security officers informed the maximum responsible for the companies.

Reference-www.elespanol.com

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