Rodrigo Rato, from prison "solidarity" to pending cases

BarcelonaThe figure of Rodrigo Rato is the icon of a political and economic era. Rato's story is that of a meteoric rise to the pinnacle of political and economic power, from where he staged a long and agonizing fall that led him to the cells of Soto del Real prison. What has become of the man who in 2011 euphorically rang the bell for Bankia's stock market debut?

Rato, son of a family of textile and construction entrepreneurs, is now 77 years old and lives with his wife, Alicia González, whom he married in his second marriage in 2015. Rato still awaits the Supreme Court's ruling on a second judicial conviction: four years and nine months for having maintained a millionaire fortune in tax havens.

In one of the few public appearances he has made recently – an interview on the podcast of the former president of ONCE and Telecinco, Miguel Durán – he attacks Cristóbal Montoro, whom he accuses of having "used his position as Minister of Finance" to pursue him judicially. "I have done nothing wrong to Montoro, nor was the reason for my arrest substantiated," he protests.

Rato was already convicted for the scandal of the "black cards, which led him to prison in October 2018, where he coincided with the prisoners of 1-O and José Luis Bárcenas, among others. He assures that in Soto del Real he found "a kind of camaraderie and solidarity" among the prisoners that has endured once he left under a third-degree regime, two years later.