Anticorruption Prosecutor seeks nine-year sentence for Jordi Pujol

Judge dismisses case against Marta Ferrusola due to her health condition

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Marta Ferrusola and Jordi Pujol in an archive picture

The Anti-Corruption Prosecutor's Office is seeking nine years in prison for the former president of the Generalitat Jordi Pujol Soley. In the the case presented this Friday against the Pujol family, it also seeks between eight and twenty-nine years in prison for his children and Mercè Gironès: 29 years in prison for firstborn Jordi Pujol Ferrusola, 17 for Mercè Gironès, 14 for Josep, and eight for Pere, Oleguer, Oriol, Mireia and Marta. In addition, it is seeking five years in prison for the ten businessmen investigated in the case. The Public Prosecutor considers the members of the Pujol family perpetrators of crimes of illicit association, money laundering, falsification of commercial documents, crimes against the Public Treasury and frustration of execution, while accusing the businessmen allegedly involved in a plot of necessary cooperation in money laundering.

The Prosecutor considers that members of the Pujol family "hid", at least since 1991, "a huge amount of money in Andorra", which originated in payback for favours towards certain "businessmen awarded various public tenders by the administration". As reported by the public ministry, accuses Jordi Pujol Sr. of having agreed with his wife, Marta Ferrusola, that these funds would be distributed in "accounts opened in the name of their children" in Banca Reig, which later merged with Banco Agricola giving rise to Andbank. His eldest son, Jordi Pujol Ferrusola, would also have been the main manager of this money. In addition, it points out that Jordi Pujol Sr took advantage of his political position to "weave a network of patronage" according to which both he and "certain businessmen related to CDC" would have "shared the substantial benefits from public tenders the resolution of which depended on the different Catalan administrations under the control of CDC"

Case against Marta Ferrusola dismissed

On the other hand, High Court judge Santiago Pedraz has decided to close the case against Marta Ferrusola due to her bad health, accepting therefore the request of her defence, which showed that she is affected by a supervening dementia. Ferrusola was prosecuted since last July for criminal organisation, money laundering and crimes against the Treasury and false documents, for allegedly having obtained "multimillion illicit profits through false and corrupt activities".

After the defence's request, the Prosecutor's Office asked for a medical examination of the investigated and, once it was done, reported that it did not oppose the dismissing the case. The evidence presented by the defence is a report from the neurology unit of the Hospital de Sant Pau in Barcelona that certifies that Ferrusola suffers from Alzheimer's since 2018, a disease that was aggravated by a domestic accident she suffered in August. In addition, the couple had to be isolated after testing positive for coronavirus last January. "As the Public Prosecutor's Office points out, the circumstances that concur in this case and that are described by the forensic doctor have to be taken into account," Pedraz argues in his brief: "It is appropriate to decree the dismissal of the proceedings in accordance with article 779 of the law of Criminal Procedure."

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