The defense of Arturo González Panero, mayor of Boadilla del Monte between 1999 and 2009, has tried to refute this Wednesday the arguments of the Prosecutor’s Office, which considers that the confession that the former councilor made days before the start of this trial for the corruption of the plot Gürtel in the Madrid municipality is not truthful and maintains for him his initial request of forty years in prison. González Panero admitted the business bribes of the plot and affirmed that the PP ordered him to divert a part to electoral campaigns.
The Prosecutor’s Office ratifies its request for the conviction of the PP for benefiting from the Gürtel in Boadilla
Know more
During a long hour of intervention in the report process, his lawyer, Gustavo Galán, has tried to value his client’s testimony. He has affirmed, for example, that González Panero recognized that there were Popular Party campaigns in Boadilla that “were carried out irregularly” and that companies in the plot should not have been allowed to organize such acts. Or that he maintained a “criminal collaboration” with Francisco Correa, leader of the Gürtel, until 2005, and that the “favorable treatment” he was given was in exchange for commissions.
Last week, prosecutor Concepción Nicolás described as “biased, misleading and false” the confession of the former mayor, who stated that the PP gave him instructions that he had to pay “outside” part of the expenses of the autonomous campaigns of 2003 and of the 2004 general elections. The former mayor also claimed to have received “calls from Moncloa” during the presidency of José María Aznar and guidelines from the party’s regional president, Pío García-Escudero, in relation to various people and actions by Gürtel in the municipality . But the representative of the Public Ministry recalled that jurisprudence requires that for a confession to have effects it must not hide, falsely add other different elements or evade responsibilities by attributing them to others. “Exactly what Panero has come to do,” he said.
This is the thesis that the former mayor’s defense has tried to refute, who has insisted that in no case did his client try to “avoid responsibilities” and he did provide new and relevant information to clarify the facts. Galán has affirmed, in this sense, that González Panero contributed in his interrogation “a series of novel data” on some of the main prosecuted adjudications. Among them, that of a garbage and cleaning contract to the Sufi company in exchange for an alleged commission of more than 250,000 euros and for which he himself “instructed” the head of technical services.
The lawyer has also referred to the awards to Constructora Hispánica, which belonged to Alfonso García Pozuelo, who already confessed his participation in the plot during the trial of the First Period of Gürtel. Galán recalled that his client acknowledged that he was awarded three projects in 2003 through the “favoring” that he exercised and that 30,050 euros were allocated to the People’s Party campaign for the municipal and regional elections held in 2003 and the general elections of 2004.
www.eldiario.es