José Antonio Griñán, who was the socialist president of the Junta de Andalucía, will go to jail, and he will do so within 10 days. This has been determined by the Provincial Court of Seville in response to the requests of Anticorruption and the private accusation, exercised by the PP, in the case of the ERE. In this way, Justice does not wait for the central government to resolve the request for partial pardon for the former president or for the ongoing judicial proceedings to be resolved, specifically the incident of nullity presented before the Supreme Court or the appeal for amparo before the Constitutional.
The sentence issued by the Supreme Court in the month of September is executed today, when the order of the High Court was released denying the suspension of the prison sentences for the 9 convicts, among whom is Griñán. In parallel, it agrees to the suspension of the execution of the three-year custodial sentence imposed on the former Director General of Labor of the Junta de Andalucía Juan Márquez while his request for pardon is processed.
Let us remember that in the political piece of the ERE (Employment Regulation Files) some twenty former socialist government officials were sentenced for creating and maintaining for at least 9 years (2000-2009) a fraudulent network of aid granting to companies and employees, which generated a hole of almost 700 million euros in the regional coffers.
The case was tried in the first instance by the Provincial Court of Seville, although the defendants appealed the sentence and the matter was addressed by the Supreme Court, which ended up ratifying the meaning of the Court's ruling two months ago.
The former socialist president, sentenced to six years in prison and two days for committing a crime of embezzlement, will be imprisoned without the court cases he has open having been resolved. The defense could not do more to avoid this moment.
The lawyer, José María Calero, asked the Provincial Court not to take into account the Prosecutor's report and argued that there are "exceptional assumptions" to suspend the order of entry into prison, Griñán's main objective. Among them, he referred both to the age of his client, 76 years old, and to the support received in terms of the request for a partial pardon requested from the Ministry of Justice, as well as, on the other hand, the "impeccable" resume of the former president. But none of this has been enough to achieve his mission.
It has been the Prosecutor's Office and the private accusation in the case, exercised by the PP, who requested the immediate entry of those convicted with prison sentences by the ERE. Specifically, Anti-Corruption submitted two reports to the Provincial Court in this last month advocating the execution of the sentence, although the second of them, as stated in a Justice order, was still "pending resolution".
In it, and at judicial instances, the Prosecutor's Office explained that in its first brief it had already taken into account "to assess the origin of the suspension of the custodial sentence the fact of the presentation by the convicts of an incident of nullity, when it was announced for their procedural representations in their respective writings". For this reason, "the sentence handed down being firm and this being due to be fulfilled", the Prosecutor's Office reiterated "in all its extremes the content of the report dated November 2, 2022", by which it was already opposed to the suspension of the sentence of imprisonment imposed on the convicts Griñán Martínez, Fernández García, Viera Chacón, Vallejo Serrano, Barberá Salvador, Rodríguez Román, Márquez Contreras, Serrano Aguilar and Martínez Aguayo".
The private accusation, for its part, has joined the Anticorruption resolution on the two occasions on which it has spoken.
Although the Provincial Court of Seville had summoned for tomorrow those convicted with disqualification sentences for the ERE case, both the former president of the Andalusian Government, José Antonio Griñán, and his predecessor in office, Manuel Chaves, have collected today the requirements for compliance with the sentence.
Upon his arrival at the Courts, Griñán has sent his lawyer to give the appropriate explanations about a possible suspension of his entry into prison as a conviction for committing a crime of embezzlement, for which the Supreme Court sentenced him to six years and two days of imprisonment. "I have no idea about that," he commented, who "answers all legal questions" is his lawyer. However, shortly after, the court order was released in which he ordered his entry into prison.
Yesterday the summons set for Wednesday by the First Section of the Provincial Court of Seville was announced to all those sentenced to disqualification within the framework of the ERE, some fraudulent employment regulation files and arbitrary aid to companies that lasted between 2000 and 2009 causing a hole of almost 700 million euros in the regional public coffers.
There are 15 former political positions on whom this conviction weighs, including Griñán and Chaves convicted of committing a crime of prevarication. Most of them have chosen to collect the personal requirements today and before 11:00 in the morning, both former presidents, the former Minister of Employment, Antonio Fernández, or the former General Director of Labor, Juan Márquez, had already passed through the court. .
