Isaías Herrero, the computer scientist and friend of Laura Borràs, is negotiating with the prosecution the possibility of indicting the president of Junts in the trial that will begin this week at the Superior Court of Justice of Catalonia (TSJC) for the division of contracts when the leader directed the Institució de les Lletres Catalanes, as confirmed to EL PERIÓDICO by sources familiar with the case. Herrero’s lawyer met last Friday with one of the prosecutors who will be in charge of holding the trial, but the pact, in the end, was not closed. Everything will depend on how the previous questions that will be raised this Friday during the first session of the hearing are developed.
This scenario opens the possibility that Herrero, who was sentenced for drug trafficking to five years and three months, may benefit from a lesser sentence request by the prosecution. But, for this, he must confess in court that the division of the contracts was Borràs’s idea, who was the one who, in reality, He gave you directions to do it.. The modification of the indictment and, therefore, of the request for a lesser sentence could be made in the previous questions, a situation that the sources consulted do not consider probable, or in the final conclusions, when the computer scientist had already testified before the court and clearly accused the one who was her friend.
That change would mean blow to the president of Junts, since the blame for the alleged irregularities in the contracting would fall on her. The prosecution requests for Herrero the same sentence that he requests for Borràs: six years in prison for document falsification and 21 years of disqualification to hold public office and a fine of 72,000 euros (144,000 euros for her). But for now, everything is up in the air. For the third defendant, Andreu Pujol, who participated in these adjudications, the public prosecution requests three years in prison, a fine and disqualification.
the second covenant
Herrero’s maneuver is aimed at avoid going to prison. His sentence of five years and three months in prison for drug trafficking was suspended if he did not commit a crime again and after reaching an agreement with the prosecution to confess. The facts of which he is now accused are prior and if the TSJC imposes a minimum sentence on him for the ‘Borrás case’, the computer scientist could avoid jail again. This is the second defendant in the case that seeks to reach an agreement to be exonerated after directly implicating Borrás.
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In the indictment, prosecutors Assumpta Pujol and Teresa Duerto report that the ILC governing board agreed on March 20, 2013, when Borràs was already in charge, to entrust Herrero with the development of a web portal and its maintenance, with whom he had had previous professional relationships at the university and in a research group. “Acting by mutual agreement and with unity of purpose”, the two agreed that the remuneration for these computer services would be made through administrative contracting, “unduly dividing into different minor contracts” (for an amount not exceeding 18,000 euros, without VAT), the accusation affects.
“On a recurring basis”, the leader of Junts, as director of the ILC, awarded a total of 18 contracts to Herrero, “directly or indirectly through other natural or legal persons interposed.” The purpose, according to the prosecution, was “to violate the principles of transparency and public competition provided by law”, being aware that with “their way of acting they openly violated compliance with the regulations on administrative contracting” and prevented “the management of the service could be awarded to another person”. The amount of these computer services entrusted to Herrero between 2013 and 2017 amounts to 277,438.17 euros (336,700.29 euros with VAT).