Jordi Pujol Ferrusola after testifying before Judge Pablo Ruz. / SERGIO PEREZ (REUTERS)
Jordi Pujol Ferrusola, eldest son of the Catalan president, came on Monday to court as a defendant Pablo Ruz with a mountain of suspected corruption behind: allegations of his ex-girlfriend on Money, Certified Tax Agency on movements of money laundering (32.4 million) with origin or destination in 11 countries and reports from the police about the alleged payment of kickbacks (7.5 million) who paid contractors of the Catalan supposedly as payment for favors received from the Catalan administration under President CiU.
Ferrusola Pujol left the National Court to five hours after charging on slopes without any precautionary measures because neither the prosecution nor the State Bar saw sufficient reason to ask for them.
His lawyer expressed some satisfaction with this fact and a statement considered key to the future of his client.
What happened during the interrogation does not mean that the child greater the Catalan president has proved his innocence and file the case opened by Judge Ruz is next. Although not possible to interpret the evidence of guilt against him have not confirmed your legal situation will worsen in the coming days.
The process open for tax fraud and money laundering to Jordi Pujol started Ferrusola stumbled and still strewn with obstacles.
Judge Pablo Ruz rejected in late 2012 to open a case when he read the police report of the ex-girlfriend of Jordi Pujol Ferrusola considering that the facts recorded in it were too inconcretos to initiate a criminal investigation.
The appeal of the Prosecutor against the decision of Judge Ruz forced to reopen proceedings, interview the complainant and ask the Inland Revenue some basic facts about the denounced .
The testimony before Judge Maria Victoria Alvarez girlfriend Pujol Ferrusola between 2006 and 2008, was riddled with loopholes, interpretations of telephone conversations that partially listened, and claims that over time has been responsible quarantining. Here are some examples:
– Trips to Andorra for money laundering Maria Victoria Alvarez told the court that between 2006 and 2008 made several trips to Andorra Jordi company. Pujol Ferrusola. Back from one of those journeys in autumn 2008, Alvarez saw stacks of 200 and 500 euros in an open backpack that was in the trunk. “He knew the amount,” he told the judge, “because I heard a telephone conversation Jordi on the platform of the station Lleida with his ex-wife and told her that everything was going well and had drawn interest four hundred and odd thousand euros”. Alvarez later told reporters a somewhat different version of events: “Then I saw, because I told, because I had never seen so much money when we reached the hotel said” I want to see how much money is here “and told”
-. Investment in Puerto Rosario (Argentina) “[Jordi Pujol Ferrusola] contributed 40 million euros, although I can not prove, to buy the port of Rosario. At that time I had sex with someone of the Port of Tarragona. But this is an assumption (…) They had bought the Port of Rosario to make a series of reforms and then sell it to get a gain of 30 million euros. ” The police investigation into claims that Jordi Pujol Ferrusola bought 60,500 shares of Inter Rosario Port Services for 451,000 dollars in July 2007, although he suspects that cost at least twice. In 2009, the police reports that the eldest son of former president went to various capital increases to pay nearly two million dollars, far from the 40 million euros reported the ex-girlfriend of Jordi Pujol Ferrusola.
In the testimony of Maria Victoria Alvarez there was no reference to the collection of bites contractors paid by the Generalitat of Catalonia Jordi Pujol Ferrusola. The judge found this detail when requested reports to the Inland Revenue on businesses of the eldest son of former Catalan. Between 2004 and 2012 it had revenues for five companies Ferrusola Pujol totaling 7.5 million euros from 11 different companies, all won contracts in the administration of Catalonia during the tenure of the CiU.
With this disturbing information, the judge asked the police to investigate these payments interviewing employers who paid 7.5 million Jordi Pujol Ferrusola.
The 62-page police report delivered last June Holding theory that the companies paid for simulated return for previous contracts received from the Catalan administration services. To support this thesis, the police detail the evasive answers of employers to justify payments Ferrusola Pujol and the fact that in many cases there were documents avalasen commercial relationship which paid different amounts.
This denunciation of course billionaire bribery and influence peddling to justify the payment of bribes is difficult to prove. The judge has not got enough time to evidence such crimes attributed to the accused Jordi Pujol Ferrusola
The Penal Code defines bribery. “Public authority or official who, for his own benefit or that of a third , receives or requests, by itself or through a third party, gift, favor or compensation of any kind or accepts an offer or promise to perform in the exercise of his office an act contrary to the duties of the same. “
In his statement, Pujol Ferrusola said everything was for professional services charged actually did. That traffic was declared money allegedly Finance companies and thus by the son of the president, so can not be attributed to these practices a fiscal offense. The payments were made between 2004 and 2012, a period when most of the time ruled the PSC supported by ERC and ICV. Police say payments were deferred for many years before contracts awarded by the governments of Jordi Pujol. But the judge has not yet decided whether to open an investigation, assumed infinite, on contracts awarded by the Government prior to 2003 to 11 companies that hired the services of Jordi Pujol Ferrusola.
In Bárcenas case , Judge Ruz investigates for 18 months if the alleged illegal donations received by the PP construction companies obey the payment of commissions for awarding public works in government ruled by the people. The judge has failed to prove all this time that these bribes were produced. Donor companies have thousands of contracts with public administrations governed by political parties of all ideologies. Nevertheless, employers are charged in the case for having broken the law with illegal donations undeclared money to the treasury they deny.
In the Pujol Ferrusola case are two investigating crimes judge Ruz and are awaiting information that has to come from Andorra referring to the funds the president’s son could keep banks in that country. The Andorran judge has already warned that the information provided, it will not come within a month, may be used only in the event that such funds, if Jordi Pujol Ferrusola had money saved there, have their origin in illegal activities related to the corruption.
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