"After nine years I have the respect I can have for him." Haughty, vehement, this is how Rodrigo Rato appeared yesterday before the Provincial Court that is judging him for having diverted money out of Spain to avoid the Treasury.
Tone, accusations and tension that have led anti-corruption prosecutor Elena Lorente to ask for respect for her work. A respect that she has not achieved "Respect is earned," Rato snapped.
In this 42nd session of the trial being held in the Provincial Court of Madrid, the former vice president of Spain, former president of Bankia and top director of the Monetary Fund has not stopped making allusions to the Prosecutor's Office, which he has accused of supporting crimes against his person without foundation.
He has directly attacked the prosecutor for "inquisitorial practices", "waste of time" and has even gone so far as to question her economic training and her ability to analyze the evidence documents that he has presented to defend himself.
The most tense moment of the session came when, after the umpteenth attack on the work of the Anti-Corruption Prosecutor's Office for making it respond to movements that, in his opinion, are clear, Lorente took the floor to indicate that the prosecution "should be due respect", to which Rato responded that "respect is earned". "After 9 years - of cause - I have the respect with you that I have to have," he added. The magistrate has intervened to clarify that until now no one had disrespected anyone and that in that case it would be she who would take care of it.
"Madam President, I'm not going to talk to you about the weather, but this really is surprising. Someone will have to say it, because we are all of legal age. That is, the Spanish Administration asks us for respect and does not know that currency rates change "Well, what do you want me to say? I can't believe it," Rato insisted."
This scuffle has taken place after the former Minister of Economy of the Aznar era charged against the Prosecutor's Office, accusing it of acting in the investigation "with impunity" and regretting that its failures do not entail responsibility.
"It is tremendous, why do I have to prove that I am not a person, (...) I cannot understand that the Public Administration in criminal areas uses inquisitorial practices of negative demonstrations," he said when asked by his lawyer in relation to whether it was or not who was behind THE Irish company Red Rose Investment for whose balances the Prosecutor's Office charges 3.7 million of undeclared profits.
Along the way, Rato has stressed that this society is not his -- "there is no evidence anywhere of the cause, after nine years, that relates this society to me" -- and that everything "is a monumental mistake."
Furthermore, he stressed that the Tax Agency knows all of his finances since 2012-2013, "and knows it not because she discovered it" but because he voluntarily reported it. "That is a fact that is proven in my statements of 750 and 720 - models related to the tax amnesty -.
"So, selectively, the Tax Agency sometimes and the Prosecutor's Office other times, they forget a part. It depends on how things go. They forget bits, to see if they can maintain accusations and keep the issue alive," he has come to say. ensure.
Just as he has refuted that note from the company Red Rose Investment, Rato has been detailing today, point by point, all the movements that the Prosecutor's Office calls into question in the years 2013, 2014 and 2015.
Before, at the beginning of the day, he spent time talking about the special tax declaration (DTE) - tax amnesty - to ensure that he accepted this regularization because he thought that "it was the easiest way" to surface the companies that had abroad -Vivaway, Red Rose Financial and Wscastle-.
"I was probably wrong, given the results. When this regularization is proposed, well, I join it with the intention of not only regularizing, as the word indicates, there are no major secrets, but of repatriating the money to Spain," has explained.
And he has pointed out that just in 2012, when he presented it, he already had a complex personal situation because a case was opened in the National Court and that could have "civil liability consequences."
In this sense, Rato has indicated that he declared everything he should declare, contrary to what the Prosecutor's Office maintains, and has attacked the Public Ministry explaining that he does not know "what the ability of these gentlemen is to judge the profitability of the portfolios." "I don't know if they are experts in that, it doesn't seem like they are," he added.
It should be remembered that Rato is accused of 11 crimes against the Public Treasury, money laundering and business corruption. The Prosecutor's Office is asking for a sentence of 70 years in prison for having defrauded more than 8.5 million in the management of his assets.
