The judge of the National High Court Santiago Pedraz has agreed to open an oral trial regarding the political groups PDECat and CDC and the former treasurers of the latter, Daniel Osàcar and Andreu Viloca, as well as some thirty other people, including Germà Gordó, in the so-called case of 3 percent, the structure put in place supposedly to finance said party illegally through public works tenders.
In its resolution, the head of the central court of instruction five agrees to open oral proceedings regarding a total of thirty natural persons, including politicians, businessmen and officials from different administrations and public institutions of Catalonia, and sixteen legal persons, while which decrees the partial provisional file for Juan Antonio Carpintero.
The magistrate declares the Criminal Chamber as the competent body for the prosecution of these facts and gives a period of three months to the representations of the defendants to present their defense briefs.
The order to open the oral trial includes the indictments of the Anti-Corruption Prosecutor's Office and the city councils of Barcelona and Sant Cugat del Vallès. The public ministry considers that the facts constitute the crimes of criminal organization, fraud against public administrations, corruption between individuals, influence peddling, bribery, prevarication and money laundering.
In addition to Gordó, as strongman of the CDC during the investigated period between 2008 and 2015, and the ex-treasurers, Pedraz sends to the bench the former managers of the formation Francesc Sánchez, Anna Dolors and Carles del Pozo. Several former managers of public companies are also accused: Ángel Sánchez. Constantí Serrallonga, Ernest Santolaria, Josep Antonio Rosell Polo, Joan Lluis Quer, Sixte Cambra and Antoni Vives.
Together with these, almost twenty businessmen will be sued, since this order of opening dictated by the judge is not appealable. The list, in order of the prosecutor's indictment, is as follows: Francesc Xavier Tauler, José Miarnau, Josep Manuel Bassols, Sergio Lerma, Jose María Zaragoza, Pedro Javier del Llano, Ramón Anglada, Joan Albert Arqués, Félix Pasquina, Juan Luis Romero, Ramón Blázquez, Joan Maria Pujals, Jordi Sumarroca Claverol, Antonio García-Bragado and Jordi Soler.
The political parties "CDC" and "PdeCAT" will also have to be present as legal entities; and the following companies (also by order of the letter): Teyco, Urbaser, S. A., Fundación ACS, Grup Soler Constructora, S. L., COPISA Constructora Pirenaica, TEC-Cuatro, Oproler Obras y Proyectos, Ayesa Enginyeria i Serveis, Impulsa Ortiz, Certis Obres i Serveis, Pasquina, Romero Gamero, Benito Arnó e Hijos and Construcciones Deco.
Anticorruption requests sentences that exceed twenty years in prison, although for ten of them there is a substantial reduction for their collaboration with justice. The public ministry is trying to prove that the Convergència Democràtica de Catalunya (CDC) party was financed illegally for almost a decade through donations in exchange for awards and for this reason it is demanding a fine of three million euros from the party, or its substitute PDECat, for a money laundering crime.
For the prosecutor, it is a system installed in the core of the party and is known as 3% for the percentage that businessmen had to pay for training as donations in exchange for winning awards.
