The court of the fourth section of the Provincial Court of Valencia, which sentenced Eduardo Zaplana to 10 years and five months in prison for the corrupt plot of the “Erial affair”, excluded the imprisonment of the former president of the Generalitat Valenciana, despite this, the anti-corruption prosecutor’s office alleged the risk of flight and the seriousness of the crimes. “I have no intention of escaping,” Zaplana said.
“He is a free and innocent man,” said the lawyer of the former PP minister, Daniel Campos, during the hearing convened by the court this Thursday. The anti-corruption prosecutor, Pablo Ponce, raised the “nature and seriousness” of the sanctions and crimes “related to political corruption” and the exercise of his “public functions”, for which Zaplana was convicted. Ponce argued that the popular former minister had access to people “capable of managing assets abroad.”
The representative of the Public Prosecutor’s Office recalled that a former senior official of Zaplana, the former general director of the Valencian Institute of Exports (Ivex) José María Tabares, sentenced to five years in prison for fraud, fled to Japan , a country that does not have an extradition treaty with Spain. The convict claimed that it was the Generalitat Valenciana itself that filed a complaint against Tabares, leading to his conviction and escape.
“Tabares is a fugitive,” declared prosecutor Pablo Ponce, who raised the “possibility” that Zaplana had assets abroad that he “did not make available to the Spanish authorities.” He also indicated that there are countries in which “with economic resources you have access” to health care, in reference to the defense’s allegations regarding the convict’s state of health.
Attorney Daniel Campos provided the same 2019 medical report on Eduardo Zaplana’s health that led to his provisional release. The defense believes that there is “nothing to indicate that Zaplana will escape justice” and recalls that he “rigorously” respected the measures imposed on him after his release. “He did not take advantage of the opportunity to flee justice,” said Campos, who recalled that his client was “at the court’s disposal.”
The defense claims that Zaplana has his home and family in Benidorm, in addition to his pension. The court ended the hearing after the parties’ interventions and the former regional president is, for the moment, free pending the court’s decision.
After leaving the City of Justice, Zaplana assured that he would continue to “fight” by appealing to the Supreme Court. Regarding the anti-corruption representative’s allegations, he bluntly stated: “The prosecutor can say whatever he wants.”
