The incriminating statements by the computer scientist Isaías Herrero and the businessman Andreu Martín about the division of contracts at the Institució de les Lletres Catalanes limits the defense of the Junts leader and brings her closer to a possible sentence
Although expected, It has been a jug of cold water for Laura Borras. From the moment it was leaked that the other two defendants who sit with her on the bench, the computer scientist Isaías Herrero and the businessman Andreu Pujol, they had reached an agreement with the prosecutor’s office to incriminate her, the possibility that the president of Junts will come out well diminished. Hence, her defense threw the darts to boycott that agreement.
In a brief prior to the first hearing session, his attorney, Gonzalo Boye, took out his artillery and described these two defendants as “co-accusers” and dropped that their confessions were “compensated, subsidized or paid.” A war that continues in the courtroom, but that has not prevented Herrero and Pujol from directly implicating Borràs this Monday in the splitting of computer service contracts when she was director of the ILC.
What acts have the computer scientist Herrero confessed to?
The computer scientist Isaías Herrero has admitted before the court that the president of Junts “knew”, gave him instructions and they agreed the two to divide the contracts for computer services that he was commissioning from the Institució de les Lletres Catalanes and that for this he presented the real budget, which would be the one that would be approved, and two other “comparsas” or false ones. Total, 18 contracts that should not exceed 18,000 euros each, the limit to grant them by hand, and for a global amount of 336,000 euros (324,000+ VAT), between 2013 and 2017. “We agreed to divide the work into several contracts,” stressed the defendant. Herrero has been shown during his interrogation the emails that were seized from his computer at the entrance and search of his home and those that were sent to Borràs about the division of contracts. “They should not exceed 18,000 euros,” he recalled.
What does the third defendant admit?
The third defendant, the businessman Andreu Pujol, who has also reached an agreement with the prosecution, has acknowledged at the hearing that he was aware that Borràs and the computer scientist agreed to charge for the work for the ILC through different contracts. In his statement he stressed: “I followed Isaiah’s instructions”. In addition, he has accepted that the concepts of the services that appeared in the invoices sometimes “resembled” the real ones and other times they did not.
What agreement did they reach with the prosecution?
Both Herrero and his friend Pujol they promised before the prosecution to incriminate Borràs and declare that it was she who gave the indications to divide the contracts for computer services of the Institució de les Lletres. The two have met this Monday and now the ball is in the prosecutor’s court. Unless there is a last-minute unforeseen event, the prosecutors Assumpta Pujol and Teresa Duerto they will modify their indictment and reduce the penalty request for each of them. Provisionally, they demand six years in prison for Herrero and three years for Pujol. The idea is that the sentence is less than two years in prison and, therefore, none of them enter a prison compound. But she has it Borrás, who is facing a request for six years in prison, which poses a risk of being imprisoned if the courts consider her guilty of the alleged crimes of prevarication and documentary falsification. This apart from the disqualification that would be imposed on him to hold public office, which would mean the end of his political career.
How can the president of Junts defend herself?
Borràs’ strategy has had to change radically after the agreement reached between the prosecution and the other two defendants. Until the beginning of February, the purposes were the same and the lawyers of the three defendants had drawn a common line to be able to convince the court that their clients were innocent. However, the agreement has blown up that purpose. As has been observed in the first sessions of the trial, the lawyers of the pro-independence leader play, from the outset, to try to discredit the other defendants who, in their opinion, have betrayed her.
So far, this purpose has not been achieved. Herrero and Pujol refused to answer questions from Borràs’s defense. There was only a threat when the lawyers of the former president of the Parliament wanted to record, that Herrero had been a drug addict. Although that ploy didn’t work out for them either. First, because the president of the court withdrew their word and, second, because the computer scientist himself admitted that he had had problems with drugs. With this panorama, the struggle of the sovereignist leader could focus on trying to annul as evidence the emails that evidenced the division of contracts or casting suspicion on them.