This Monday begins in the National High Court the trial of former Catalan President Jordi Pujol for alleged illicit enrichment of his family
The 95-year-old former president has been hospitalized from mid-November until last Friday, suffering from pneumonia, and the trial will begin by deciding whether he can go to trial because of his state of health and be in a position to face the 9-year prison sentence requested for him by the Public Prosecutor's Office.
From this Monday, the National High Court (AN) will tryJordi Pujol, who was president of the Generalitat de Catalunya from 1980 to 2003, together with his seven children and more than 15 alleged collaborators\u00A0for forming an alleged criminal organization.
They are charged with the offences of integration into an illegal group, money-laundering, forgery of commercial documents, against the Treasury and theft of property.
The highest sentence, 29 years' imprisonment, isrequested by the Public Prosecutor's Office for the eldest son of the family, Jordi Pujol Ferrusola, as well as a fine of more than 6.5 million.
Anticorruption asks for 9 years' imprisonment and a fine of 204,000 euros for the former president himself, while for the other six children asks for 8 to 17 years' imprisonment.
In addition to the fines, the Public Prosecutor's Office is demanding that the Pujol family return more than EUR 45 million.
"Customer Network"
The remaining defendants are businessmen, for whom the Public Prosecutor's Office is requesting penalties of between two and three years' imprisonment for a crime of falsehood in a commercial document in connection with a money-laundering offence, as well as a fine of between 200,000 and 8 million euros.
The Anti-Corruption Prosecutor believes that Pujol "took advantage" of his position as President of the Generalitat and President of the Democratic Convergence of Catalonia (CDC), "woven a network of clientelism that Pujol himself and the CDC pro-business parties would share with each other through public competitions."
The former president of the Generalitat, who admitted in 2014 that he had money abroad but claimed that Florenci was derived from his father's inheritance, explained in a statement that Pujol's father wanted to leave him out of Spain because, having lived closely through the 1930s and 1940s, "he was afraid of what might happen and even more of what might happen to a committed politician."
More than200 witnesseswill participate in the trial, which is expected to last until mid-2026.
Pujol's state of health.
The former president will begin sentencing on Monday by videoconference. He will report from his home in Barcelona on his state of health.
According to a court report issued at the request of his defense, Pujol "is not in a position to be transferred or declared to Madrid." According to the expert, the 95-year-old former politicianhas "a strong mixed neurocognitive disorder (Alzheimer's type and vascular type)."
The doctors who drafted the report after Pujol's examination will also testify on Monday to confirm the findings.
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