Nobody, except perhaps the lead figure, understood much of what happened during the Thursday session before the Valencia Audiencia court handling the Erial case, where Eduardo Zaplana, among others, risks a long spell behind bars for offenses related to corruption and money laundering.
The point is that Francisco Grau, an economist, former tax advisor to the ex-minister and considered the mastermind of the financial operation described by the prosecution as a criminal group, was called to testify. And contrary to expectations, he did not do anything in the least predictable.
He neither backed his fellow defendant and former Consell head nor tore apart the testimony given the day before by Joaquín Barceló, another defendant who had admitted acting as a front man, and to whom Grau had explicitly warned he would do so. Without quite knowing why, Grau also brought into the room the Cotino family, the last thing the nephews of the late former police director wanted, who until now had opted for a low profile. It will be seen what happens when their own turn to speak arrives.
A pecho descubierto
But returning to Thursday’s session, one would have expected Barceló, nicknamed Pachano, to appear in the courtroom fully armored, without a bulletproof vest or hearing protectors. That was the attire he had told Grau he would wear after the latter, at the end of his declaration the previous day, chastised him for not omitting at least the five million in Andorra (allegedly placed in a bag, which Grau denied yesterday) and warned that he would testify today. From there to a direct threat is a short step.
Yet Pachano did not attend the courtroom shielded, and that hardly mattered. Contrary to what had been anticipated, the former Zaplana fiscal advisor delivered a sprawling, five-hour testimony, full of contradictions and a hint of egotism that caused some red faces. Not Grau’s, but the others.
If he said he was an economist, a law graduate, an expert in Financial Mathematics, and a former university professor, perhaps not half a dozen times but clearly enough to fill a page, he was in fact praised for his professional prowess with such frequency that the trial president, Pedro Castellano, urged him to focus on the question asked and to stop embellishing his own image. Throughout, Grau veered off course, addressing topics unrelated to the case.
He even wandered into issues beyond the scope of the prosecution, describing, for example, the Baraka group and its ownership of the Ideal cinema in Alicante, claiming it needed to be kept in check. He retracted shortly after when the attorney for the company’s head, Vicente Grima, present in court as the Cotino brothers’ lawyer, instructed him to do so.
Enmarañar
Regarding the facts that gave rise to this process and the web of companies through which the alleged bribes were channeled, Grau’s testimony did more to entangle than to clarify. As soon as one of Barceló’s companies passed from the Cotinos to the so-called Uruguayan straw owner, Fernando Belhot, Zaplana’s former Benidorm ally disappeared from view, and Grau claimed that Pachano’s will had been found under a name that did not match the person involved. It read like something from a conspiracy novel.
Relying on a multitude of filler phrases that made the testimony hard to follow, Grau clung to the impression that he could steer the questioning. In stark contrast to Barceló on Tuesday and Zaplana the day before, he tried throughout the Prosecutor’s interrogation to be the one dictating the rhythm and even the direction of the inquiries.
If he failed to do so, it was not for lack of effort but because every attempt hit the wall of an accusing attorney who knew exactly where each comma in the case file sat. The defense questions did not shed much more light either. Their purpose seemed to reinforce the warning Grau had received the day before. How could someone who once led the CDT have signed everything put before him without checking it, he claimed, and did so only because he had been forced and wished to avoid returning to prison… trivialities.
The defense’s questions did not bring new clarity either. They appeared designed to echo what had already been said and, at least as it seemed, to serve as a cautionary note for Pachano, who had been told to beware of what he signed and to speak truthfully about the companies’ real ownership, especially if it meant admitting possible ties to Zaplana.
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