The AN resumes the trial of Camps tomorrow for the Fitur contract with Gürtel after suspending it due to technical problems

The former Valencian president assures that he did not take "a single euro in his pocket" for the actions of the plot

MADRID, 29 Ene. (EUROPA PRESS) -

The National Court will resume this Monday the trial of the former president of the Generalitat Valenciana Francisco Camps for the alleged irregularities in the award to Orange Market, one of the companies in the 'Gürtel' plot, after the court suspended the oral hearing for a week for the problems in access to documentation that some parties have suffered.

It was last Monday when the president of the court, magistrate José Antonio Mora, announced that he was postponing the start of the oral hearing giving a "lapse of one week" warning that, if not, it could cause "defenselessness to some party", which "unfortunately" could lead to a "nullity" and that the trial would have to "start over three months or two years later".

This decision came after Camps' defense reported that some parties had found it "impossible to access" part of the documentation related to the process. "There are documents that we cannot access," he pointed out in the first session of the oral hearing.

The magistrate explained that the Chamber, "aware" of the need to "guarantee the right to defense", decided to grant a period of one week for everyone to have "time to access the office" and request the technicians access to the corresponding documents.

Starting this Monday, Camps will face an Anti-Corruption petition for two years and six months in jail for alleged irregularities in the contract for the Valencian exhibitor at the Fitur 2009 edition.

In statements to the media upon his arrival at the headquarters of the National Court in San Fernando de Henares last Monday, Camps assured that he did not take "a single euro in his pocket" for the actions of the plot.

In this context, he showed his intention to return to the political front line once what he considers a "very long nightmare" orchestrated by the Prosecutor's Office ends, which he accused of trying to "destroy" his work as regional president.

"We are talking about 70 minor contracts. Here no one of the people who are being tried has taken a single euro in their pocket. There is no embezzlement, unjust enrichment or money for the PP. They are contracts that the Generalitat's Attorney already said in its time that they were well done," he said.

The oral hearing, which sits Camps and 26 other defendants on the bench, is preceded by a cascade of confessions and conformity, to which Europa Press has had access, from some of the main names linked to 'Gürtel'.

The leader of the plot, Francisco Correa, his 'number two', Pablo Crespo, its administrator, Isabel Jordán, the manager of Orange Market, Cándido Herrero, and the person in charge of it, Álvaro Pérez Alonso, alias 'El Mustaches', have sent letters of recognition of the facts and have adhered to the conclusions raised by the Prosecutor's Office.

In them, the Public Ministry asks to impose two years and six months in prison on Camps as the author of a crime of prevarication and another of fraud against the administration, considering that he actively participated in directing the Fitur 2009 contract in favor of Orange Market.

According to the account of the Anti-Corruption Prosecutor's Office, Correa, 'El Bigotes' and Herrero, agreed with Camps so that he, as the highest regional authority, arranged what was necessary for the contract for the assembly of the 'Large Projects stand' of Fitur was directly awarded to Orange Market.

Camps himself sent a letter to the Criminal Chamber of the National Court last July in which he asked that the barrage of confessions not be taken into account, recalling that compliance agreements can only be assessed as "self-incriminating", that is, , for those who confess, without being able to condition the rest of the defendants.

Correa, who already accumulates sentences for more than 90 years in prison, has raised a sentence of 2 years and 3 months in prison and a fine of 134,500 euros for crimes of influence peddling, administrative prevarication, embezzlement of public funds and false document trade.

"The person most responsible for the crimes that are charged in this procedure is me," he wrote in his own handwriting in a document drawn up from the Valdemoro prison (Madrid) on July 6, 2022.

In his writing, the leader of the 'Gürtel' credits himself with the idea of ​​creating Orange Market to "obtain contracts from the Generalitat Valenciana and organize the electoral campaigns of the PP" there, "given the good relations that Álvaro (Pérez, alias 'El Bigotes') began with Paco Camps".

Crespo, for his part, proposes the same sentence as Correa --2 years and 3 months in prison--and acknowledges in his letter that he was in charge of the "accounting and financial supervision of the group of companies" of 'Gürtel', having "timely and regular information on Orange Market activities".

Jordán, who proposes 1 year, 10 months and 15 days in prison, makes it clear that since he began to participate in the plot the person who "demanded and gave instructions" was Crespo, in no case Correa. The defendant also gives extensive details about Camps and 'El Bigotes', to whom the former Valencian president owed "his best moments of his mandate with a complete, impeccable image."

Finally, Herrero acknowledges in his writing that he "attended meetings with different officials" to "concrete" the work of each of the events and "make the budgets" while pointing directly to 'El Bigotes' as the one who "got the works". The manager of 'Orange Market' proposes that he be sentenced to 7 years and 11 months in prison.

In its letter, Anticorrupción points out that the "settlement" of the 'Gürtel' in the Valencian Community from 2003 "had the purpose of taking advantage of the business possibilities offered by Camps not only for the organization and execution of all the Party's acts Popular that were held in said autonomous community, including the electoral campaign for the autonomous elections of May 2003 in which he was elected president of the Generalitat".

"But also with the subsequent objective of achieving an advantageous position in the call for and awarding of public contracts related to events that could be organized by bodies of the Valencian Autonomous Administration and by public entities dependent on it, and particularly, for the editions of the FITUR International Tourism Fair", continues the Prosecutor's Office.

"This expansion of the business" would have been articulated by Correa, Crespo, Herrero and 'El Bigotes', fundamentally, through the constitution on July 24, 2003 of the Orange Market company to operate in the Valencian Community itself. 'Whiskers' himself would later be named president of the company's board of directors and Herrero, for his part, CEO.

"From that moment on," Camps would have provided "El Bigotes" with access to senior positions in the regional administration with decision-making power and notable intervention in the processing, adjudication and execution of FITUR and other fairs contracting files, as well as other events.

These, "following the instructions of the then president of the Generalitat Valenciana, made it possible for said company to illegally obtain advertising contracts, for the organization of congresses, fairs and events of administrations and public entities dependent on the Generalitat, for the benefit of their company", according to the prosecution.