SPAIN/FILE: Spanish daily paper El Mundo passes on documents alleging ruling People's Party slush fund

Record ID: 278432

  • Title: SPAIN/FILE: Spanish daily paper El Mundo passes on documents alleging ruling People's Party slush fund
  • Date: 9th July 2013
  • Summary: VARIOUS OF PEOPLE'S PARTY (PP) HEADQUARTERS PP MEMBER AND FORMER PRESIDENT OF MADRID REGION ESPERANZA AGUIRRE ENTERING PP HEADQUARTERS SAYING: "I am not prepared to make any comment"
  • Embargoed: 24th July 2013 13:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: Spain
  • Country: Spain
  • Topics: Crime,General,Politics
  • Reuters ID: LVA308DPSVJ41VZ58R29VCJQSEGG
  • Story Text: Spain's El Mundo newspaper has delivered to the High Court what it said were original handwritten ledger entries showing payments from an illicit slush fund operated by the ruling People's Party, the paper said on Tuesday (July 9).
    Leading PP members, including Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy, received payments from the fund, the newspaper said on Tuesday, publishing colour photocopies of the ledger operated by former PP treasurer Luis Barcenas.
    In January, El Pais published photocopied extracts from the same ledger, angering Spaniards suffering the effects of a long-running recession, high unemployment and spending cuts.
    The PP reiterated on Tuesday in a written statement that no one at the party had received illicit payments and a government spokeswoman repeated denials that party members had ever received illegal cash.
    Prime Minister Rajoy and party members have repeatedly denied that they received illegal money.
    "It is false. Never, I repeat, I have never neither received nor distributed under-the-table money in this party or anywhere else. Never. I will say it again: It is false. All it's been said or anything else that can be suggested, is false and I say it calmly," Rajoy said in February following the allegations published in El Pais on January 31.
    El Mundo did not say how it had got its hands on the documents it delivered on Monday, but the paper's editor, Pedro Ramirez, published on Sunday an interview with Barcenas, conducted a few days before he was remanded in custody last month as the High Court continues a pre-trial investigation into corruption charges against him.
    Barcenas is under investigation by a High Court judge for allegedly running a PP slush fund that took donations from construction magnates and distributed them to party leaders in cash.
    Barcenas, who had previously denied the handwriting in the ledger was his, said in Sunday's El Mundo interview that he had lied and it was his writing, adding the photocopies published by El Pais newspaper were a fraction of the documents he had detailing the illegal financing of the party.
    Barcenas is also charged with money laundering, bribery, tax fraud and other crimes in a separate investigation into a group of businessmen suspected of putting on campaign rallies for the PP in exchange for kickbacks.
    Judge Pablo Ruz ordered Barcenas detained because he said the former treasurer - who worked for the PP for nearly three decades - was a flight risk and could pressure witnesses or destroy evidence.
    The so-called "Barcenas papers" scandal has sparked anger among many Spaniards.
    "What bothers me is that because of this we no longer believe politicians. They're losing credibility. You think, I can't trust any of them, they are making fools out of us," Madrid resident Covadonga said on Tuesday.
    Another Madrid resident, Eva, said that proof was needed before hasty conclusions were made.
    "Until there is proof we mustn't believe everything people say. I think we must believe in the justice system," she said.
    The photocopied extracts that appeared in El Pais in January sparked protests about political corruption outside the PP headquarters in Madrid.
    Support for the PP has crumbled to 23 percent from 45 percent at the time of the November 2011 general elections, a poll published on Sunday in El Pais newspaper showed.
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