The Prosecutor's Office assaults Rodrigo Rato within the remaining section of the trial: “He is a man used to commanding and he controls” | Economy | EUROtoday

Prosecutor Elena Lorente has deployed all her artillery this Monday towards Rodrigo Rato, former managing director of the IMF (International Monetary Fund) and vp within the Government of José María Aznar, whom the Madrid Provincial Court has been judging since final December for the alleged illicit origin of his fortune. For three and a half hours, through the presentation of her remaining report earlier than the court docket and in keeping with the thesis that she has maintained all through the oral listening to, the consultant of the general public ministry has charged extraordinarily harshly towards the previous PP politician, whom he has accused of holding monumental “assets” hidden overseas “for many years.” As the prosecutor has reiterated, Rato himself devised and “controlled” the plot to supply a picture of “apparent” legality, whereas he resorted to “instrumental companies” to cover his cash outdoors of Spain: “He is a man accustomed to commanding,” has insisted.

“I don't know if he is the star defendant, but Rato is the center of this procedure. He was a person with extraordinary power due to his political circumstances and later as president of Bankia. He is a person with gifts for control. There is an email, where [José Manuel Fernández] Norniella, [hombre de confianza de Rato durante su etapa en el Gobierno y en Bankia]Zeus calls him. The people closest to him know the extraordinary command abilities he had,” prosecutor Lorente burdened as she started her intervention, thus establishing the premise on which she builds her accusation. As she highlighted, the previous managing director of the IMF had “total and absolute control of his accounts” — “he was the master and owner” —; and he operated consciously when he hid his property and when in 2012 he took benefit of the tax amnesty to disclose it solely in a “partial” manner.

The Anti-Corruption Prosecutor's Office, which is asking for 63 years in jail for the previous chief of the PP, has already burdened this facet in its remaining conclusions: “The accused has sought, on purpose and with a fraudulent intent, the non-payment of taxes, for which he has used a national and international corporate network managed by him.” “Thus, since at least 1999 and until 2015, he has managed, on the one hand, an enormous asset abroad, with constant investments and reinvestments, unknown to the public treasury, and, on the other hand, he has evaded paying taxes. for their professional services, sheltering behind a network of interrelated companies,” the general public ministry summarized.

Rato has at all times rejected these accusations, which he describes as a “fabulation.” What's extra, the 2 opposing theses which can be put ahead within the course of—the accusation and the protection—have generated nice pressure all through these 5 months of oral hearings. The former politician even attacked the prosecutor throughout her assertion: “Respect is earned!” She snapped after reproaching him for “inquisitorial practices” towards him. And, this Monday, the previous vp additionally couldn’t maintain again throughout the complete public ministry's presentation: the president of the court docket reprimanded him for talking and urged him to “remain silent.”

Previously, Anticorruption had already outlined as “traps” and “trompe l'oeil” the alleged proof that Rato has offered to show his innocence or to, at the least, attempt to query the incriminating thesis. Prosecutor Elena Lorente has made efforts to refute the veracity of the reasons that Aznar's former Economy Minister gave in regards to the origin of his funds overseas. Thus, for instance, she has identified that there isn’t a proof that any a part of it comes from an inheritance from his father in Switzerland, as alleged by the previous managing director of the IMF. She has additionally disgraced him for “running away” from the Red Rose Investment firm “like from a fire” and saying that it’s not his, “despite the fact that they” reveal many paperwork to him.

“Tax stateless”

The public ministry has even criticized the truth that the accused intends to state that, throughout his time on the Fund, he mustn’t declare in Spain as a result of he lived in Washington: “Rato was not a tax resident.” [en EE UU]. “What is being sought is for him to be a stateless tax person,” said the prosecutor, who has questioned his motivations for availing himself of the tax amnesty in 2012 by concluding that there are indications that he supposed to “discover in a controlled manner” his property. as a result of he wanted cash for his investments in Germany.

“It is not true that, when he regularized in Spain, he was left without money abroad. Rato still had money outside,” continued Lorente, who burdened that the previous minister solely communicated “a very small part of his assets,” so he needed to pay the Treasury a lot lower than he owed. “And this is not a Persian market. “There are some fees to pay here,” added the prosecutor, who has detracted all value from the exculpatory statement that the former leader of the PP made before the court, when he refused to answer the questions of Anti-Corruption and the State Attorney's Office, and only answered the defenses. The representative of the public ministry has described that episode as “an interview with her lawyer.”

Along these strains, the prosecutor has criticized the protection technique of the previous vp, whom she has criticized for attempting to increase his historic energy to this judicial abstract. “That capacity for control that Rato exercised in his life before the procedure. His defense wanted to be acting from minute one like [juez] instructor”. However, the opinion of the former president of Bankia is drastically opposite, and he denounces that Anti-Corruption has opened a “generic and prospective case” towards him “in an illegal and manipulated manner”, in addition to towards his total circle of belief.

The trial, which held its 48th session this Monday, will continue this Tuesday. The Prosecutor's Office has not yet finished its final report, and will continue to present its thesis. Once it concludes, it will be the turn of the State Attorney's Office and each of the defenses. Finally, the accused will be able to exercise their right to the last word.

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