A businessman, in the Pujol trial: "The case has been a disaster, I've had to change profession"

San Fernando de Henares"It was a stir, I had to change my profession, I could no longer do promotions." This is how businessman Alejandro Guerrero, one of the nine on trial, has summarized the impact of the Pujol case on his work. "If you are indicted in a money laundering case, banks don't finance you," he added. He said this at the start of the last week of the trial, which will be ready for sentencing on Thursday. This Monday, the four businessmen who were pending ten days ago must testify. It was the last question in the interrogation by his lawyer, Ana Beranaola, who also made it clear that the businessman did not receive a single euro from the Generalitat of Catalonia: "Never in my life have I had any contract for anything with the public administration. I have never submitted a bid." Jordi Pujol Ferrusola acted as an intermediary so that he could buy some land in Plaza Europa in L'Hospitalet. Prosecutor Fernando Bermejo has been trying for some time to mix in the reform of Gran Via – which was indeed a public work – but it was five years earlier: "It's not my concern and I didn't have the slightest idea."

Luis Delso, a businessman "not aligned" with Convergència

The second defendant to testify has been Luis Delso, who was president of Isolux Corsán. When questioned by his lawyer, Óscar Morales made it clear that he has never had the right to vote in Catalonia and that he is not "close" to Convergència, an element which – generically and abstractly – the Prosecution accuses the nine businessmen of. "I had never thought that friendship was a criminal offense," he replied to prosecutor Fernando Bermejo when asked if he was friends with the eldest son of the former president of the Generalitat. He admitted that Jordi Pujol Ferrusola "influenced" him to be received by the governor of Nuevo León (Mexico) to discuss the construction of a highway – it was a contract that had already been awarded – and defended the role of intermediaries, even though they are "demonized" in Spain.

However, the most tense part of the interrogation was the questions from the State's legal representation, who questioned him with some belligerence. "Look carefully at the documentation before making a statement that does not correspond to reality," Óscar Morales reproached Álvaro Bazán, who had downplayed Jordi Pujol Ferrusola's involvement in an operation in Gabon. The businessman recalled a letter between a minister and the eldest son. Previously, José Ignacio Ocio had inaugurated the interrogation with a threatening tone: "If I had been present during the investigation, perhaps certain people from FCC [a Barcelona-based company] would be sitting here in your situation."

The firstborn as intermediary

The two businessmen have spoken about the work Jordi Pujol Ferrusola used to do. "He came [to tell me], as he has come to me with many more projects, because he moved very well," Luis Delso recalled. "In the business world, there are thousands and thousands of operations where you don't just pass little papers around," he said about the lack of documentation for certain operations.

Alejandro Guerrero argued that in a project in Ibiza, Jordi Pujol Ferrusola intermediated with investors who provided 25 out of the 30 million for the operation: "There's no way I would have known them if it hadn't been with him," he pointed out. He presented him as a "person who knows a lot of people" and mentioned that he introduced him to 24 projects. "The key to everything is that the person who owns the land is introduced to you; finding good products was extremely complicated," he added.