Accuses the Public Prosecutor’s Office of providing a “mendacious” complaint that was contradictory
The defense of the former Minister of Economy Rodrigo Rato has requested at the beginning of the trial being held in the Provincial Court of Madrid against him the annulment of the 2015 entry and registration order, which is at the origin of the case being pursued for an alleged illicit increase of his assets, because he violated the right to defense and the inviolability of the home, the secrecy of communications and professional secrecy.
After the presentation of previous questions by the prosecutor, who has limited herself to providing a series of documentation to be incorporated into the plenary session, in the turn of Rato’s defense, her lawyer, María Massó, has maintained that the two documents in which The instructor was supported to give the green light to that order that allowed the different records, a “generic” tax risk report of the investigated carried out by the Tax Agency and the complaint from the Prosecutor’s Office, were not enough.
Regarding the first, he explained that it was a “very broad exhibition” that included “vague and imprecise performances, and lacking rigor.”
Regarding the complaint, he pointed out that it was “mendacious” and focused on the fact that the facts stated in it were “contradictory and also atypical.” “The text itself says one thing and the opposite on several occasions and in a critical reading it should have given rise to questions or verifications and not to automatism,” he added.
In this regard, he recalled that this complaint included the crime of removing assets, which was “radically false” and which therefore the Public Ministry itself withdrew. He has also fought the tax crimes attributed to him taking into account the voluntary declaration that the former president of the IMF made.
“The tax information that is reflected – in the Prosecutor’s complaint – as defrauded fees was irrelevant from a criminal point of view because they were voluntarily declared before the complaint,” he explained.
On the other hand, he has also attacked that in those searches that lasted for two days in April 2015, they were made without following the necessary legal procedure and that it requires a lawyer from the Administration of Justice (LAJ) to be present in certain cases. moments, including his assistance in the sealing and unsealing of what was confiscated for the clones. He points out that in certain searches neither the LAJ nor the accused were present, something necessary.
Thus, he has indicated that the information obtained in certain records is “illegal” and therefore “must be expelled from the case.” Furthermore, the lawyer has indicated that after analyzing the documentation seized three years later, they saw that the 9 million digital files and the thousands of pages that were allegedly provided on April 23, 2015 by the National Fraud Investigation Office (ONIF) and that was used by the Central Operational Unit (UCO), was documentation “unrelated to the self-enabling of the records.”
“Documentation of 35 years was seized compared to the three years that the authorizing order provided protection, and over 100 people when the order only spoke of a legal entity and another natural person. Nothing was limited,” he reported about one of the records.
Thus, he considers that the instructor’s mandate was “disregarded” because “they took everything with the purpose of searching for the crime,” so it cannot be stated that “they were casual findings.” “The seizure was disproportionate, sought and never rectified” as well as “massive and indiscriminate” by the ONIF and the UCO, he concluded.
After this, he insisted that “the entire accusatory story has been built with the records of April 2015 or what was gathered by the ONIF”, and therefore “the connection of illegality occurs since through the agreed measure it is constructed this cause.” “Without the authorizing order there would be no accusatory story, and once that story declined, only free acquittal would be possible,” she added.
On the other hand, it has also requested, on a subsidiary basis, the annulment of all the seized documentation that was protected by professional secrecy.
A GENERAL CAUSE AND PRESCRIPTION
During his presentation, which took up most of the day, he denounced that the case has violated effective judicial protection for his client and that the investigation has been prospective given that everything seized was analyzed for 6 years “crystallizing in the cause”.
For Massó, the instruction he experienced “is a constant drip” of lines of investigation based on documentation that should not have been incorporated, which is why he has stressed that he requests “the annulment of the case because it is a general case against Rodrigo Rato and his entourage. family and society”.
The lawyer has also considered that the crimes against the Treasury for which Rato is being tried and which include the years from 2005 to 2010 would already be statute-barred.
“Oral proceedings cannot be opened for 11 tax crimes,” he stated, clarifying that those from 2011 to 2015 would fall within the non-prescription period.
In line, he has maintained that the tax regulation that Rato carried out, when he took advantage of the tax amnesty, was a special taxation and therefore “does not interrupt the prescription of personal income tax.”
Finally, regarding the admission of evidence, the defense has once again interested the testimony of former Minister Rafael Catalá and Santiago Menéndez, who was director of the Tax Agency between 2013 and 2018, in light of new facts known within the framework of the investigation being carried out in the Investigative Court 2 of Tarragona on the Economic Team office, a consultancy founded by the former Minister of Finance Cristóbal Montoro and in which a possible crime of “revelation of secrets” could be analyzed.
His presentation of more than 4 years has concluded with his client’s request for exemption from attending sessions in which he does not have to testify.
THE ‘RATO CASE’
The trial against the former super minister of Economy of the Aznar Government and 16 other defendants began this Friday in the Provincial Court of Madrid and will extend its sessions until the end of May.
The Prosecutor’s Office is requesting a prison sentence of approximately 70 years for him for 11 crimes against the Public Treasury, one crime of money laundering and another of business corruption in the context of the case regarding the alleged illicit increase of his assets. . He would have defrauded the Treasury of 8.5 million euros.
According to the indictment of the Public Prosecutor’s Office, collected by Europa Press, the man who was also president of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) would have maintained hidden assets from the Public Treasury since 1999 through various companies with which he would have carried out continuous fraud activities. financial investment through bank accounts in the Bahamas, Switzerland, Monaco, Luxembourg and the United Kingdom, among other places.
The analysis of the seized documentation, the Prosecutor’s Office noted, made it possible to identify unjustified increases in assets between 2005 and 2015 for a total amount of 15.6 million euros, in addition to income from movable capital abroad that was also not declared to the Treasury.
The Prosecutor’s Office also recalled that Rato took advantage of the tax amnesty in November 2012 and pointed out that he omitted any reference to several companies he owned, thus declaring assets abroad of 115,333.50 euros and paying the Spanish Treasury €11,533.35.
Anti-corruption indicated in this regard that Rato, “far from having regularized either administratively or, even less, criminally, his fortune, he actually used the special tax declaration (DTE) as a vehicle for laundering or cleaning up the illicit defrauded contributions that he carried.” for years because of its foreign heritage”.
