“When the legal strategy cannot be explained, political logic must come first.” These are the words used yesterday by the Popular Party’s Institutional Deputy Secretary, Esteban González Pons, to announce that the party was withdrawing the appeal filed with the Supreme Court against the latest sentence derived from the Gürtel imposed by the National Court. They had just found out from the national leadership what was the content of that letter that asked for nothing less than the acquittal of former treasurer Luis Bárcenas, the black beast of the popular, to get the party exonerated. Something, as González Pons said, difficult to explain.
“We could not pay that toll,” warned sources from Feijóo’s team after the sudden decision to withdraw a resource whose content they did not know.
In the appeal, however, the strategy was clear. The PP was condemned as subsidiary civil responsible for the acts of Luis Bárcenas. Specifically, of the fiscal crime committed by the black payment of part of the works of the headquarters of the Génova street that the construction company Unifica, also condemned, undertook. For this reason, to ask the Supreme Court to amend that sentence, the defense of the PP exercised by the lawyer Jesús Santos focused on whether Bárcenas is acquitted of the crime, and he could be if the dates of the investigation are scrutinized and the conclusion is reached that when they called him as a defendant it had already prescribed, there is no crime for the Popular Party either. The appeal also alleged that, in any case, he would not have to be responsible for his acts, “individuals”, since there was “neither association nor concert” with him to commit a crime. Requested the annulment for violation of law of the sentence to training.
«This resource was drafted in November and was presented ‘ad cautelam’ three days before the national congress. It falls within the logic of the honorability of the party, because we are convinced that the PP is innocent and was unjustly convicted. But in this case the judicial strategy collides with political logic, “González Pons said yesterday after the meeting of the PP Steering Committee. It was there that the decision to “withdraw that appeal” was made.
The sentence of the National High Court was notified in October of last year and the PP announced that it would appeal to the Supreme Court on November 5, within the term established by law to take that first step. The completed brief was finally formalized before the Criminal Chamber on April 20, when the PP congress that made Alberto Núñez Feijóo president had already been held. Now is when it has spread to the media because all the accusations and defenses involved in the procedure have been notified once the deadline for the presentation of the briefs has ended.
Sources from the ‘popular’ insisted yesterday to ABC that until now, they were unaware of the legal strategy contained in the appeal to try to annul the sentence as subsidiary civil liability of 123,669 euros, the part corresponding to the party of the fee defrauded in total by Unifica in 2007 on behalf of those works at the headquarters.
In fact, in Genoa they assure that they found out about the existence of the resource first thing yesterday, through the press. When they confirmed the information, which at first they did not believe, the Management Committee already decided “unanimously” and in a sudden way to withdraw the resource: “We did not know about it and we do not share it.”
Sources close to Pablo Casado, president of the party when that defense strategy was prepared and at the time the appeal was presented ‘ad cautelam’, assured ABC that he “did not know anything” about its content nor did he give any authorization in that sense. Nor did anyone from the previous national leadership, they add, give an order to act like this.
Now, in Feijóo’s team they affirm that none of the members of the current leadership of the party, including the general secretary, Cuca Gamarra, who was already in the previous leadership, was aware of the appeal that was formally presented in April.
