PARDON REQUESTS TURNED DOWN BY PP

A number of applications for pardons from high profile politicians and celebrities were turned down last Friday by the PP Administration in Madrid.

Amongst those included was the suspended judge Baltasar Garzón, currently the head of Julian Assange’s legal team, and bullfighter José Ortega Cano who is presently languishing in jail

The petitioners had all been convicted of a variety of offenses including bribery, corruption and dangerous driving leading to the death of another driver.

The most high profile of the applicants is the former high court judge Baltasar Garzón, who while presiding over the the Gürtel bribes-for-contracts case, ordered that wiretaps be taken of prison conversations between members of the ring and their lawyers.

Even though such actions have been carried out in the past without any recourse to disciplinary action against the perpetrators the Supreme said that on this occasion the wiretaps were illegal. As a result Garzón was barred from the bench for 11 years.

Also turned down by the Cabinet was the appeal of the Former Marbella mayor Julián Muñoz, who was also convicted of corruption in a case involving money that was paid illegally by the city to lawyer and former president of Sevilla soccer club José María del Nido.

Muñoz, was convicted in the Blanqueo, Malaya and the Minutos cases, but has others pending, He applied for the pardon on the grounds that at 65 years of age he is in poor health but he remained in prison pending the outcome of the appeal.

A further refusal was made to the 60 year old bullfighter José Ortega Cano from Cartagena. He has served 15 months of a two and a half year sentence for reckless homicide and reckless driving that caused the death of another driver.

The leader of the PP’s youth group in Madrid, Miguel Ángel Carromero, also saw his appeal turned down. He is currently serving a four-year prison sentence handed to him in Cuba for the involuntary manslaughter of Cuban dissidents Oswaldo Payá and Harold Cepero in another car accident. Although he will remain in prison it will be on home release in Spain.

The appeal was also rejected of the ex politician and former PP regional premier of the Balearic Islands, Jaume Matas. He was found guilty of influence peddling after he hired a journalist

The cabinet also turned down a pardon request by the former PP regional premier of the Balearic Islands, Jaume Matas, who is also a former Spanish environment minister. He was given a nine month sentence after being found guilty of using public money to pay a journalist who wrote articles praising him. The verdict was part of a wider scandal that has also ensnared a member of the royal family, Cristina de Borbón, and her husband Iñaki Urdangarin

Filed under: http://www.theleader.info/article/44323/

Car and Motor Insurance | Spanish Home Insurance | International Money Transfers | Send Money to Spain | Spain Property | Online International Payments | Property in Spain
Costa Blanca Property for Sale | Cabo Roig Property for Sale | International Payments |