José Antonio Griñán, former president of the Junta de Andalucía and sentenced to six years in prison for committing a crime of embezzlement in the ERE case, went today to the Institute of Legal Medicine where he met with a doctor in order to determine if due to the disease he suffers (prostate cancer) it is appropriate or not for him to enter prison.
Let us remember that the Provincial Court of Seville had given a maximum term of until January 1 to all those convicted for the same reason as those who were involved in this fraudulent aid scheme that caused a hole of almost 700 million euros in public coffers. In fact, six of the eight sentenced have already spent their first hours in jail, although José Antonio Griñán asked the Court to stop the execution of his sentence due to suffering from this disease, from where he urgently requested a forensic report to adopt a decision on it.
With the medical documentation provided by the convicted person, an IML doctor, according to the ruling issued by Justice, had to assess "whether admission to the prison could have an impact on the development of the disease or on the prescribed treatment", since, such And as the ex-politician's defense argues, in case of having to comply with the court ruling, "it could reduce your life expectancy." According to judicial sources, on this occasion the coroner has not carried out any diagnostic test on the patient.
In a similar situation is Agustín Barberá, former Deputy Minister of Empelo, who is pending another forensic medical report after reporting that he suffers from a very serious illness with incurable conditions.
The Court of Seville continues at the expense of receiving that forensic report, although everything indicates that Griñán's visit to the offices of the Legal Institute of Medicine is one more step for the writing of it. Once the coroner has assessed the situation, he will inform the Court of his determination, after which Justice will ask the Prosecutor's Office and the PP, represented as popular accusation, to rule on its content, before issuing its decision on the request of the former president Andalusian to suspend his imprisonment.
Until now, the position of the Andalusian PP, once the prisoner's complicated state of health became known, has been clear: "These are decisions that are in the hands of the courts and must be respected," the Minister of the Presidency, Antonio Sanz, pointed out today in the same line that the rest of his companions have pronounced. Although everyone is happy that justice is done and an end to a shady case carried out by the PSOE-A, "we have never discussed that humanitarian side that has always been transferred around the person of Griñán by part of his family ”, he pointed out.
The six convicted in this case have already spent their first hours in prison. It was the former Minister of Finance and Griñán's right-hand man, Carmen Martínez-Aguado, the first to enter prisons, and she did so before the expiration of the term given by the Court. Thus, the former politician entered her in the Alcalá de Guadaría women's prison to serve her sentence on December 28.
Behind her, the former Minister of Employment, Antonio Fernández, sentenced to 7 years and 11 months in prison, exhausted the last minutes of the first day of January to enter Port 3, in Cádiz.
Past term, José Antonio Viera, former Minister of Employment and Technological Development and sentenced to 7 years, exceeded the limit of freedom in the Huelva prison this Monday, December 2. While he entered in the morning, the rest of the sentenced who had yet to serve their sentence entered Seville I in the afternoon. They are the former Minister of Innovation Francisco Vallejo, sentenced to 7 years in prison; Jesús María Rodríguez, Deputy Minister of Innovation and sentenced to 6 years in prison; and Miguel Ángel Serrano, former general director of IDEA (the company that managed public funds) sentenced to another six years in prison.
"That Andalusia is the Andalusia of the past," said the government spokesman, Ramón Fernández-Pacheco, to the media after the imprisonment of those involved in the political piece of the ERE. "That photo" of "the Andalusia of corruption, scandal and misuse of public money was left behind" with "the Government of Juanma Moreno" and has ensured that "fortunately" Andalusia "is now a leader in job creation, self-employed , contribution of wealth, tourism, and exports," he commented.
On the other hand, he has assured that the only interest "of the Andalusian Government" is to recover all the money that was defrauded, all the money that belongs to the Andalusians.
