“A person who paid more than enough for his sins in life has died.” This was the first thought that came to mind this morning. Juan Antonio Bellochformer Minister of Justice and Interior with the PSOE in the mid-1990s, upon learning of the death in Zaragoza of Luis Roldan, who starred in a bizarre escape to Laos, in Southeast Asia, after discovering his corrupt management in front of the General Directorate of the Civil Guard.“He is one of the people who has been in prison for the longest in Spain, I think he has even been the longest”has assured
Belloch, who is also the former mayor of Zaragoza. “And I’m not just talking about corruption crimes linked to politics, but in general, as many as some terrorist,” he added. After complying with the Justice, the former minister has indicated, “Roldán the truth is that he has behaved with dignity, because he has not tried to take advantage of demagogic and populist judicialism, which could have led him to make television programs.” “He has maintained a dignified attitude until the very moment of his death and I only ask that he rest in peace,” he said.
“It caused obvious damage to the PSOE”
“I stopped it” explained Belloch, who is writing his memoirs, in which he will address the operation that allowed the location and arrest of Luis Roldán in Laos. For this reason, he does not wish to delve into that episode that shocked Spain at the end of the last century.
“Roldán obviously caused damage to the PSOE”, has recognized the former minister, born in Mora de Rubielos (Teruel) and who recently retired after a stage as a magistrate in the Criminal Chamber of the Superior Court of Justice of Aragon (TSJA). “It also coincided with the collapse of Mario Conde, president of Banesto and prototype of the modern businessman, who had been a leader,” he added.
“Roldán was not just any person, but the general director of the Civil Guard, and as such had an incredibly important specific weight in the structure of the State, in fact a minister told me that I could not go anywhere with him because they treated better to the director of Meritorious than himself,” says Belloch.
You have to keep in mind, he continues, that then the Civil Guard was the second most valued institution in the State, after the monarchy, “and I don’t know if that will have changed.” Thus, the discovery of Roldán’s shady affairs caused a “great commotion, not only in the Socialist Party, but at a social level”.
“Yes, it can be said that before the judge he confessed the facts and did not implicate different people, I do not know if it was because he had nothing to say or for any other consideration”
“How was it possible that the successful banker and the director general of the Civil Guard saw each other? involved in these matters? It was hard even to believe,” says Belloch.
However, Belloch highlights, the electoral decline of the PSOE did not begin after the corruption in the leadership of the Benemérita was uncovered, but “some time later”. “In the elections following the Roldán affair, we were only 300,000 votes of the Popular Party, that is to say, it did not have a significant repercussion in that aspect at that time”, he recalls.
Instead, remember, it did have an impact on the “psychic state of the population and in the morale of party members”.
Roldán, upon being captured, spoke that he was going to “pull the blanket”. But Belloch emphasizes that he “ended up declaring everything before the court”, emphasizing the word everything. In fact, he insists, “he was convicted of all the facts that the prosecutor charged him with.”
Did you hide something? “Only he will know that”
However, Belloch does not dare to say if Roldán hid things. “Only he will know.On that it is impossible to speculate, but it can be said that before the judge he confessed the facts and did not implicate different people, I do not know if it was because he had nothing to say or for any other consideration, “he indicates.
“The truth,” he adds, “is that his post-sentence behavior shows that he still had some principles left”says the former minister.
Belloch, however, assures that he has never dealt with Roldán. “I have never seen him in my life, not even the day I stopped him.”