Salamanca (EFE).- The Investigating Court number two of Salamanca has archived the open case against the PP of Salamanca by not seeing illegal financing, in which the party itself, the former provincial president of the PP, have come to be investigated and current president of the Provincial Council, Javier Iglesias, and his provincial manager, Isabel Sánchez.
In its resolution, to which EFE has had access, the Court considers that from the actions carried out it cannot be determined that the PP has been illegally financed in the framework of the 2017 regional primaries, which were held to elect the successor of Juan Vicente Herrera at the head of the PP-CyL and who promoted the current president of the party and of the Junta de Castilla y León, Alfonso Fernández Mañueco, to the regional leadership.
In 2019, an anonymous complaint was filed warning of possible illegalities in those primary elections after updating the affiliate quotas so that they could participate in the process, since as of December 31, 2016 they were listed as “defaulters”. ” 4,913 of them.
Although initially the investigating judge closed the case, it was the Provincial Court of Salamanca that forced, in June 2020, to continue with the investigation to verify “if there are rational indications of the possible commission of a crime of illegal party financing political or, on the contrary, there is only a payment of someone else’s debt”.
Resources and years of research
After several appeals and years of investigations, the head of the Investigating Court number two has now filed the case, considering that there is no “criminal classification” in the actions of the PP of Salamanca during the 2017 primaries.
Thus, according to the court order, the payments made to the debtor affiliates are “a payment of the debt by a third party”, so they are “fully legal”.
“It has been proven, through testimonial statements given in court, that both elected officials and members of the PP of Salamanca freely and voluntarily delivered, individually, economic contributions to pay the fees of members who were not in good standing. day, and thus ensure that all of them meet the requirement of ‘being up to date with the payment of quotas’ to be able to vote on the day of the primary elections”, the resolution details.
Therefore, in the opinion of the investigating judge, these contributions “do not constitute a donation or contribution to the political party with the purpose of proceeding to finance it”, since they are the payment of membership fees “with the purpose of updating the census of voters”.
Payment of affiliate fees
During the investigation, the origin of 62,000 euros that would have been allocated to the payment of these debtor installments was studied, although 24,140 of that amount appeared “without justifying”, which led to the PP itself being identified as investigated, as a legal entity, to the former provincial president of the party, Javier Iglesias, and the manager, Isabel Sánchez.
Now, the judge has explained in his order that these amounts “have been clarified”, having been provided by the PP of Salamanca “nominal affidavits”, which has led the head of the Court to recognize that all this “cannot be classified as none of those payments or income as ‘anonymous donations’ as each and every one of the people who made said payments were fully identified, with names and surnames”.
The judicial order has concluded by saying: “it is expressly declared that the formation of the cause does not harm the reputation of those investigated, PP of Salamanca, Javier Iglesias and Isabel Sánchez.EFE