The representative of the Gürtel plot in Valencia presents a letter of conformity before the January trial, while sources close to the MEP respond that he did not have a budget
The head of Orange Market, the branch of the companies of Francisco Correa that made up the plot Gürtel, Álvaro Pérez Alonso, alias “the whiskers“, points out the former Minister of Institutional Relations and spokesman for the Consell from August 27, 2004 to May 30, 2006, Esteban González Pons, as responsible for fixing a contract of 62,000 euros in 2004, according to Pérez’s acknowledgment of facts, advanced by Cadena Ser.
Álvaro Pérez is one of the 27 people who will be judged from January 17, 2023 in the last piece of the Gurtel plot Valenciana that remains to be celebrated. This is the part of the minor contracts, in which the favorable treatment of seven companies from Belt who received, between 2004 and 2009, a stone of small contracts of less than 12,000 euros from four conselleries and five public companies of the Generalitat, worth more than 1.8 million. Among the 27 people prosecuted is the former president of the Generalitat, Francis Campsthree former ministers (Alicia de Miguel, Luis Rosado and Manuel Cervera), seventeen technicians or intermediate positions of the Generalitat and six members of the Gürtel plot, convicted in other pieces of this case and who have already collaborated with justice for a long time.
The letter of acknowledgment of facts by Álvaro Pérez is a consequence of having reached an agreement with the Anti-Corruption Prosecutor’s Office, which exercises the public accusation in this last trial of the Valencian Gürtel plot, they confirm to Raise-EMVfrom the Prensa Ibérica group, various sources.
According to the last confession of “El Bigotes” before the imminent trial of the National High Court, the then minister of Institutional Relations Gonzalez Pons also presumably mediated so that the Generalitat granted another public contract to Gürtel. And as proof, according to Cadena Ser, provides a document that collects the payments made together with the acronym EGZ, which would allude to the former Minister of Institutional Relations and spokesman for the Consell de Francisco Camps. González Pons is currently MEP and Institutional Deputy General Secretary of the Popular Party and responsible for Justice, Defense and Constitutional Policy in the partywhich is why he is one of the interlocutors of the party led by Alberto Núñez Feijóo in the renewal of the General Council of the Judiciary (CGPJ).
“Not one euro was moved without Camps authorizing it”
“The Whiskers” He already declared in this sense on January 31, 2019, when the case was reopened to summon the former president of the Generalitat, Francisco Camps, as investigated. Pérez admitted having received favorable treatment from the Generalitat from 2004 to 2009. A commercial idyll that ended when the Gürtel case broke out. “Camps was the one who decided the awards. In Valencia not a euro moved without Camps authorizing it”, said the head of Orange Market, in a statement that lasted for three hours.
The first public award achieved by Orange Market (created on July 24, 2003) It was hand in hand with the Minister of Institutional Relations from August 2004 to June 2006, Esteban González Pons, who, according to El Bigotes, was the first one who “gave” him one of the contracts he achieved by hand: the elaboration of the ‘Guide of the communication’ in paper but also digital format, which was delivered in “a pen-drive-type electronic memory device” that was given as a gift from the Consell at Christmas 2004. A total of six Grupo Correa companies participated in this contract of 88,975.5 euros, which was divided into eight invoices of less than 12,020.24 euros (the legal limit at the time for a smaller contract), to avoid going out to tender. The entire operation was coordinated by Dora Ibars, general director of Institutional Promotion, according to the order to open the oral trial of this case, reopened at the request of the Anti-Corruption Prosecutor’s Office in order to investigate the alleged participation of Camps in these events.
According to El Bigotes statement, González Pons would also have facilitated the award to Orange Market of an environmental awareness video, in which three companies from the Correa Group participated in a paripé contest organized by the public company Vaersa, belonging to the then Department of Territory. In exchange for these first hires, the Valencian branch of Gürtel had to hire Ignacio Blanch as manager, due to his close friendship “with Camps and González Pons”. Blanch included “He returned to the Presidency of the Generalitat, but his salary continued to be paid by Orange Market,” according to Pérez.
González Pons has never been cited in the Gürtel case
Sources close to the former minister and current MEP Esteban González Pons assure Raise-EMV that It is not the first time that Bigotes has tried to spread the shadow of doubt about the intervention of the Consell’s spokesman in the Gürtel plot. Despite these attempts, González Pons has never been summoned, not even as a witness, during the long investigation of this case that broke out on February 6, 2009 with the first arrests ordered by the judge Baltasar Garzón, who gave continuity to the investigation initiated by the Anti-Corruption Prosecutor’s Office. The same sources emphasize that the Ministry of Institutional Relations was a department without a portfolio and, therefore, without a budget. And that the other contract refers to a stage in which the head of Territory was Rafael Blasco, whom González Pons replaced in May 2006.