Former Spanish Minister Ábalos Receives 23 Years in Prison for Corruption in Mask Purchases
José Luis Ábalos, former Transport Minister, was sentenced for irregularities in health contracts during COVID-19. His former adviser Koldo García was also sentenced.
Former Spanish Minister Ábalos Receives 23 Years in Prison for Corruption in Mask Purchases
The court imposed a sentence of 23 years and three months imprisonment on José Luis Ábalos, former Transport Minister of the Spanish Government, on Monday for corruption offences linked to the acquisition of medical material during the pandemic.
In the same case, Koldo García, who had served as adviser to the former minister, was also sentenced to 19 years and eight months in prison, and businessman Víctor de Aldama was given four and a half years suspended after cooperating with investigators and admitting the facts.
The three were tried in the Spanish capital on a broad indictment that included bribery, abuse of influence, misappropriation, membership of a criminal organisation, use of privileged information, falsification and perversion of the course of justice.
According to the public prosecution, those accused used the positions that Ábalos and García held in the Executive and in the PSOE to direct procurement contracts for protective equipment towards certain companies, obtaining improper benefits in return.
This case opened the door to a wider investigation that remains active and which examines possible irregularities in the running of the socialist party, specifically in the awarding of public works.
Ábalos held the ministerial portfolio between 2018 and 2021. Given the seriousness of the accusations, the political party decided to remove him in 2024. The politician had been one of the closest collaborators of Pedro Sánchez, forming part of the team that accompanied him from his rise to the general secretariat of the PSOE to his arrival at the Presidency of the Government.
Sánchez himself publicly acknowledged the existence of "very serious evidence" of criminal conduct within the ranks of his party, offering apologies to citizens and party members, although he maintained that the PSOE remains a "clean organisation" and denied the existence of irregular financing.
Source: Correio da Manhã
Source: Correio da Manhã