So-called front man for the former president of the Generalitat Eduardo Zaplana He summoned the Constitutional Court judge as a witness, at the hearing of the Erial case. Case in which the former Minister of Labor faces nineteen years in prison for allegedly taking bribes in the Technical Vehicle Inspectorate (ITV) and Wind Plan decision. Two alleged pioneers face eight years in prison.
The calendar, which was notified to the parties by the fourth chamber of the Valencian Court before the case reached a deadlock due to the recovery of Zaplana’s lawyer, brings together the names and order of testimony of all the witnesses testified by the Anti-Corruption Prosecutor’s Office. The position and defense of the fifteen defendants.
And among the subpoenas is the name of the current judge of the Constitutional Court, Enrique Arnaldo Alcubilla, who joined the high court in 2021 at the proposal of the People’s Party. Although the quote includes next to the name Enrique Arnaldo the name of his company, Estudios Jurídicos y Procesales SL, with which he carried out private professional activity from 2002 to 2009. And it performed 562 services for dozens of public administrations.
This figure was acknowledged in a letter dated 21 April 2010 by Enrique Arnaldo to José Castro, the judge investigating the Palma Arena case, in which the former president of the Balearic Islands and former Minister of the Environment Jaume Matas was also tried. He was sentenced to 10 months in prison and 10 years of ban from public office for the crime of influence peddling and incitement to persistent abuse of office and fraud against the Administration.
In this article, Enrique Arnaldo also referred to a letter written by Uruguayan trustee Fernando Belhot, in which he announced that both had signed a “framework cooperation agreement” for the establishment of a network of Ibero-American law firms. In this letter, the Uruguayan businessman stated that “there is plenty of information regarding investment projects in the fields of real estate, tourism, renewable energy and transportation” between his law firm and Enrique Arnaldo’s law firm.
Moreover, he explains that Arnaldo relies “not only on the efforts and dedication of partners in your office, but also on external collaborators” for “the transfer of work and projects to investors, some of which are currently in the negotiation phase.” According to El Periódico de España, from the same publishing group as INFORMACIÓN, a veiled reference was made to the possible collaboration of Jaume Matas with the law firm of the PP’s candidate for the Constitutional Court.
Cadena Ser was the person who developed this cooperation agreement between current Constitutional judge Enrique Arnaldo and Uruguayan lawyer Fernando Belhot to share clients in Spain, Panama, Brazil and Uruguay. A contract signed in 2009, the year Belhot began his professional relationship with Eduardo Zaplana.
Arnaldo’s summoning as a witness by Francisco Grau, one of Zaplana’s alleged front men, would be aimed at eliminating a business entity between Belhot and the former head of the Generalitat, as the former minister had repeatedly stated.
Despite the fact that it was Fernando Belhot who handed over a total of 6,734,026.1 euros to the investigators of the Erial case. Money allegedly belonging to Eduardo Zaplana. After receiving this money, the 8th Investigation Court and the Anti-Corruption Prosecutor’s Office released the former minister on February 7, 2019.