The National Court has sentenced Serafín Castellano to a year and nine months in jail counselor of the Generalitat Valenciana in governments of the PP. As stated in a sentence dated Wednesday, the Court has considered its involvement in the call, a plot that operated in that community and in Catalonia, among others, to alter the award of fire extinguishing contracts in the sector of the sector of the sector of the Air navigation through the corruption of officials and authorities. Spanish, who was a counselor with four different regional presidents and delegate of the government of Mariano Rajoy ,.
The magistrates have declared to former Minister guilty of the crimes of bribery, prevarication, embezzlement and documentary falsification. But they acquit him from the crime of illicit association, which the Public Ministry also attributed to him. This detail allows Spanish to reduce the prison sentence that had agreed with the Prosecutor’s Office: thus, the 2 years and 7 months of agreed imprisonment are finally 1 year and 9 months. In turn, when establishing the penalty, the attenuator of confession and the undue delay of the procedure has been taken into account – the case began in 2015 and has sentenced almost 10 years later.
During the trial, which was held last September, 16 people sat on the bench. The 12 that reached an agreement in accordance with the Prosecutor’s Office have been convicted; And the other four that did not agree, acquitted. In this second group is Francisco Alandí Escrig, manager of one of the companies involved in the plot. He was the one who denounced the existence of the jail and contributed numerous documentation to prove it. Due to this cooperation, the court has applied the so -called “acquittal excuse”, a concept introduced by a European directive to protect the regrets – if certain conditions are met, as in this case, according to the hearing. It is the first time that the Court applies this exemption since its entry into force.
The sentence describes how, between 1999 and 2018, a group of entrepreneurs from the fire extinguishing air navigation sector allied to “geographically distribute public tender tendered nationwide”, by starting up a “series of behaviors illegal ”. To do this, “they had, in some cases, with the collaboration of authorities or public officials with competences in the field.” According to the summary, the corrupted received gifts, such as cash, vehicles, hunts, weapons, electronic devices and stays in hotels.
Regarding Serafín Castellano, the investigating judge said that, to achieve his favor, multiple “gifts” were given – only those related to hunting activities exceeded 160,000 euros, according to the judge. And he was not any. During his stage as a politician of the PP, Castilian accumulated enormous power in the Valencian Community. He reached the top of conservative formation in the region, within which he held charges of enormous responsibility. He was provincial president of the PP in Valencia; General Secretary of the Autonomous Party; regional deputy; Mayor of Benisanó (Valencia) … also, for several periods from 1999 to 2014, counselor of the Generalitat (of Justice and Public, Health, and Government) administrations with four different presidents (Eduardo Zaplana, Francisco Camps, José Luis Olivas and Alberto Fabra). And the government of Mariano Rajoy appointed him as the Executive delegate in the community, a position he exercised.
