The fourth division of the Valencia Court issued a verdict as Eduardo Zaplana’s trial faced a postponement. The reasoned suspension document cited the illness of his lawyer, making it impossible to commence oral proceedings. The Anti-Corruption Prosecutor supported the decision, explaining that Zaplana lacked legal representation and that starting preliminary matters on new dates would be unworkable. The court therefore decided to postpone the trial until March 21, since none of the fifteen defense lawyers raised objections.
Nine years of education
The hearing was scheduled nine years after the Instruction Court began preliminary proceedings. Decision 3568/2015, issued on November 16, 2015, had already led to the arrest of Eduardo Zaplana and several close associates on May 22, 2018. Zaplana, a former minister of labor, entered temporary detention along with two associates, Joaquín Barceló and Francisco Grau, until the three were briefly released. This release occurred not on health grounds but after funds amounting to 6,734,026.1 euros associated with a suspected Uruguayan front man, Fernando Belhot, were found in the accounts of the 8th Instruction Court of Valencia.
Subsequently, the Court of Investigation 8 and the Anti-Corruption Prosecutor’s Office decided on February 7, 2019 to release Zaplana and his two so-called frontmen after confirming that the money had indeed been deposited into the court’s bank account.
There is a straightforward view that the case reveals a long arc of decisions shaping the trajectory of investigations tied to a network around Zaplana. The money movements and the sequence of arrests illustrate how the judicial process unfolded through multiple stages, with authorities repeatedly reassessing the evidence and the conditions for custody and release. The timeline includes arrests, brief detentions, and the complex interplay between the public ministry and the court system as they evaluated financial traces and documentary records.
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Nineteen years in prison
After a lengthy inquiry spanning nearly a decade, the Anti-Corruption Prosecutor requested a sentence of nineteen years for Zaplana, alleging that he and others received commissions in exchange for awarding ITV and a Wind Plan. The public ministry described a pattern of illegal activity tied to a criminal group that allegedly included money laundering, bribery, falsification of commercial documents, and administrative lying. The allegations point to a broader scheme implicating several actors who were part of Zaplana’s inner circle or closely associated figures in the political and business spheres.
On the day of his arrival at the Valencia courts, Zaplana’s image stood beside the long shadow cast by a political career spanning leadership of the Generalitat Valenciana and the role of minister of labor in the People’s Party. The case also involves two other figures long described as frontmen and additional members of Zaplana’s trusted circle, including his secretary, his private secretary, and his former assistant Elvira Suanzes, who were named in the investigative dossiers alongside the Vicente brothers and Juan Cotino Escrivá, among others. A separate lawsuit targeted Juan Cotino, the former president of the Cortes, and an uncle of two businessmen, a matter complicated by his death from Covid-19 while trials progressed in the Gürtel chamber during the pope’s 2020 visit. The broader set of convictions in related cases underscored the seriousness attributed to the charges against all defendants.
Zaplana’s camp has consistently maintained that the former head of the Generalitat is innocent. They argue that he did not hold money abroad and that the defense will produce evidence demonstrating absence of criminal liability when trials proceed. Since his 2018 arrest, Zaplana has invoked the right to silence in front of the judge and the Anti-Corruption Prosecutor’s Office. The defense strategy relies on challenging the procedural roadmap that began the case, notably by questioning the so-called Syrian documents, removing the testimony of the Uruguayan front man Fernando Belhot, and contending that there is no direct documentary evidence linking Zaplana to the alleged offenses. Some arguments are framed around the possibility of transferring the trial to the National Court to ensure a fair process and thorough examination of the facts.