Spanish corruption inquiry inches closer to Prime Minister Rajoy

A Spanish court is examining financial records that police say point to two decades of corruption at Spain's ruling Popular Party. The party says a ledger at the heart of the case is a fake.

|
Juan Medina/Reuters
Spain's Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy reacts during a session at the senate in Madrid, Tuesday.

The Spanish government and ruling Popular Party (PP)  are strenuously denying allegations that top leaders are involved in serious corruption, even after the country’s highest court took over an investigation into whether the ruling party took bribes from large companies. 

Prosecutors gave National Court Judge Pablo Ruz a 14-page secret ledger Thursday that police believe contains records kept by former PP Treasurer Luis Bárcenas – some of them bribes paid to the party going back nearly two decades. The country’s main daily, El País, published excerpts of the ledger on Jan. 31, citing an anonymous source, and since then, the national political dialogue has been riddled with conspiracy theories about blackmail and intimidation.

Judge Ruz will consider the ledger and determine whether the money that was paid to officials, up to and including Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy, came from illegal payments in what was allegedly 20 years of party-sanctioned corruption. PP officials have insisted the ledger is a fake, suggesting it was fabricated to damage the government, and said cases of corruption over the years have been isolated and not coordinated by the party.

Today Deputy Prime Minister Soraya Sáenz de Santamaría refused to answer questions about Mr. Bárcenas or the ledger.

Ruz is already investigating Swiss bank accounts held by Bárcenas that contain about 38 million euros. Police believe at least part of the money is the proceeds from kickbacks.

The court heard Friday how Bárcenas ordered $4.5 million be transferred to US accounts, including $1 million to his predecessor as PP treasurer.

The ledger

Bárcenas's ledger apparently covers 7.5 million euros in donations over the years, mostly from builders, that were funneled to PP leaders. Mr. Rajoy is noted in the books as a recipient of 25,000 euros a year.

The Spanish public has been furious about the story. But whether the ledger legally proves a crime was committed is something else again.

Judge Ruz decided to open a parallel inquiry into the ledger after police concluded that some of its entries coincided with illegal party contributions exposed as part of a broader four-year corruption case that has already resulted in convictions of businessmen for bribing officials to win public contracts.

By linking both cases, the court could potentially ask officials to explain whether they received cash ultimately tied to bribes from businessmen.

The country’s Attorney General Eduardo Torres-Dulce supported the judge’s decision on Friday and said he had already handed all his findings over to the court. The PP is denying everything, and suing El País as well as the ledger's “author,” without directly naming Bárcenas.

The former treasurer, who originally denied the ledger was his, shielded the PP initially. But as the investigation deepened, Bárcenas severed ties to his party, accused them of stealing work computers, and is now suing them for wrongful termination, in what most Spaniards believe was the result of a failed blackmail attempt against the party, according to a published poll.

You've read  of  free articles. Subscribe to continue.
Real news can be honest, hopeful, credible, constructive.
What is the Monitor difference? Tackling the tough headlines – with humanity. Listening to sources – with respect. Seeing the story that others are missing by reporting what so often gets overlooked: the values that connect us. That’s Monitor reporting – news that changes how you see the world.

Dear Reader,

About a year ago, I happened upon this statement about the Monitor in the Harvard Business Review – under the charming heading of “do things that don’t interest you”:

“Many things that end up” being meaningful, writes social scientist Joseph Grenny, “have come from conference workshops, articles, or online videos that began as a chore and ended with an insight. My work in Kenya, for example, was heavily influenced by a Christian Science Monitor article I had forced myself to read 10 years earlier. Sometimes, we call things ‘boring’ simply because they lie outside the box we are currently in.”

If you were to come up with a punchline to a joke about the Monitor, that would probably be it. We’re seen as being global, fair, insightful, and perhaps a bit too earnest. We’re the bran muffin of journalism.

But you know what? We change lives. And I’m going to argue that we change lives precisely because we force open that too-small box that most human beings think they live in.

The Monitor is a peculiar little publication that’s hard for the world to figure out. We’re run by a church, but we’re not only for church members and we’re not about converting people. We’re known as being fair even as the world becomes as polarized as at any time since the newspaper’s founding in 1908.

We have a mission beyond circulation, we want to bridge divides. We’re about kicking down the door of thought everywhere and saying, “You are bigger and more capable than you realize. And we can prove it.”

If you’re looking for bran muffin journalism, you can subscribe to the Monitor for $15. You’ll get the Monitor Weekly magazine, the Monitor Daily email, and unlimited access to CSMonitor.com.

QR Code to Spanish corruption inquiry inches closer to Prime Minister Rajoy
Read this article in
https://www.csmonitor.com/World/Europe/2013/0308/Spanish-corruption-inquiry-inches-closer-to-Prime-Minister-Rajoy
QR Code to Subscription page
Start your subscription today
https://www.csmonitor.com/subscribe