The virtually 4 hours of declaration within the National Court this morning appeared to have fallen brief for Francisco Camps. After a tense interrogation by the prosecutor Concha Sabadell, the previous Valencian president, accused of the awards to Gürtel on the Fitur stand in 2009, wished to proceed answering questions that the Public Ministry had not even formulated. It is the final trigger that corners him and that sits him on the bench with a request for 2 and a half years in jail, which he has tried to maneuver away with an indication of verbiage and a staging that has not lacked for something, no images, no moments of frivolity, no regrets for the scenario he’s going by.
Countless are the occasions that the president of the court docket has needed to reprimand him for making an attempt to set the tone of the interrogation. That of the Prosecutor’s Office is completed, however the assertion will proceed this Thursday in order that the defendant can reply the questions of his personal lawyer.
With him, Camps will be capable to give free rein to all the reasons which have remained within the pipeline, which in actuality haven’t been many as a result of he has managed to impose his speech and clarify the messages he had ready: that he didn’t know Correa; that he was not a buddy of Álvaro Pérez; that he had nothing to do with hiring Gürtel; that for 14 years he has felt persecuted by the Prosecutor’s Office; and that he’s loopy to return to politics. In his final response to the prosecutor Sabadell, and by means of a joking remark, he instructed her that if he drops the costs in opposition to him, he would begin campaigning “proper at this time”, though that, clearly, may be very troublesome for him.
In this trial, Camps is between two variations of the totally different defendants: on the one hand Francisco Correa, Álvaro Pérez, Isabel Jordán, or Álvaro Crespo, who guarantee that he dictated the contracts that have been made; however, the officers who make sure that every little thing was executed appropriately.
The one who appeared one of many nice guarantees of the Popular Party has been exonerated in 9 circumstances and at first he was not on this one. However, the statements by Álvaro Pérez and the previous basic secretary of the Valencian PP Ricardo Costa, who blamed him for the contracts, have ended with him on the bench.
His relationship with the Gürtel males: He didn’t know Correa and he was not a buddy of Álvaro Pérez, “the stagehand”
One of the factors to make clear on this case, and it’s elementary, is the connection that Camps had with Correa or with Álvaro Pérez. The ringleader of the plot identified throughout his assertion that he met the previous Valencian president on the wedding ceremony of Aznar’s daughter with Alejandro Agag, that they later noticed one another two or 3 times and that they even had a gathering in a lodge.
About the marriage: There is graphic proof that the 2 have been at it, and Camps doesn’t deny that, though he does deny that they met that day: “El Escorial was bursting, and while you go to that sort of occasion you have a look at the vital ones, like Aznar or the ministers who had gone”, he replied. About the conferences: Camps has tried to clarify {that a} handshake or a “let’s go there” isn’t realizing one another and has insisted that he was not conscious of who Correa was or what he was like bodily. About the assembly in a lodge in Madrid: The ex-politician has tried to show that on the day indicated by Correa he was in Valencia. For this purpose, he has proven a number of pictures within the room during which he was seen at totally different occasions, to persuade the prosecutor that it was inconceivable for him to be in any lodge in Madrid that day, as a result of he “had an agenda” in Valencia.
As for the incident on the primary day, when after Correa’s assertion he approached him to ask for a proof for implicating him and to inform him that he was “ruining his life”, Camps has apologized and insisted that this was their first assembly.
But what was actually troublesome was dismantling his relationship with Álvaro Pérez, whom he now describes as “the stagehand of the PP, regardless of the affectionate conversations they’d on the cellphone, some with the intervention of his spouse. The leaders of the Gürtel plot have all the time maintained that after the arrival of Rajoy to the management of the PP, relations with Genoa have been damaged and that making the most of the great relationship of the chief of the Valencian PP with Pérez, they moved to Valencia.The conversations which have been heard in court docket replicate an in depth relationship that Camps has rejected time and time once more.
His “I like you very a lot”: Camps was making an attempt to persuade the magistrates and the Prosecutor’s Office that his relationship with Pérez was merely “skilled and “political”. He defined that on Christmas Eve 2008, after acquiring in Madrid that the then President Zapatero accepted 2,500 million euros of financing for the area, he was exultant and referred to as Pérez on the request of Ricardo Costa. He assures that he mentioned these phrases as a result of it might have been pejorative for him to inform the “stagehand of the PP” that “how good the microphone was for him or I did the scenes for him”. The “I owe you a large number”: Camps has denied owing something to anybody and even much less “to these folks”. He affirms that he feels “extraordinarily free” and that he’s calm.
According to his model, he didn’t know something concerning the Gürtel plot or his firm in Valencia, Orange Market, till Judge Baltasar Garzón began the case. He does admit that Perez was once on his group for acts, however he did not take into account him considered one of his trusted women and men.
His complaints for “14 years of persecution” of the Prosecutor’s Office
The persecution of the Prosecutor’s Office is a mantra for Francisco Camps. His 9 exonerations serve to insist that when he’s acquitted of a case, such because the one with the fits, they arrive again to persecute him with one other. He has repeated the thought on the road, earlier than the media, throughout these weeks of trial, and in entrance of the prosecutor Sabadell he has executed it once more a number of occasions.
Pacts: on a number of events he has identified that the accusations that Gürtel’s leaders are making in opposition to him truly reply “to pacts with the Prosecutor’s Office” that undergo blaming him to acquire benefits in their very own circumstances. “Biased political life”: Camps has assured that the “persecution” of the Prosecutor’s Office skewed his political life, which he was enthusiastic about and preferred. So a lot in order that in a second of détente he has joked about the potential for beginning a marketing campaign “at this time” if the costs in opposition to him have been dropped. Tension: Camps has ready his protection carefully and has tried always to elaborate on the problems that him, generally delving past the questions from the general public prosecutor or introducing parts comparable to images that weren’t within the case. The Court’s Patience
Countless are the events on which the president of the court docket has requested Camps to restrain himself. “I’ve been moved, excuse me”, he has come to excuse himself on one of many events during which the Justice of the Peace requested the court docket for respect as a result of “we’re in one thing very severe”.
With endurance and kindness, the Justice of the Peace has been demanding that Camps “focus”, that he restrict himself to “answering the questions” or that he not converse “like that” to the prosecutor.
It isn’t that Camps has been impolite, however he has turned out to be a defendant who goes at his personal tempo, and never solely at this time. After the incident with Correa, which occurred outdoors the courtroom, and the complaints about his gestures and feedback throughout different statements, Justice of the Peace José Antonio Alarcón ordered him to sit down “within the entrance row” to maintain him below management.