The Prosecutor's Office is in favor of the definitive suspension of Griñán's imprisonment
The Anti-Corruption Prosecutor “does not oppose” the suspension of José Antonio Griñán's imprisonment. The Public Ministry thus supports the application of article 80.4 of the Criminal Code, which empowers judges to cancel the entry into prison of a convicted person if he suffers a “very serious illness and incurable conditions”. And that is exactly what the latest forensic report issued by the Institute of Legal Medicine of Seville defends after the review that the former president of the Junta de Andalucía had on June 6 to elucidate the stage in which prostate cancer is found. who was diagnosed at the end of the year.
The delegated prosecutors in matters of Anti-Corruption in Seville, Juan Enrique Egocheaga and Manuel Fernández Guerra, have already opened the door to the application of the aforementioned article in the previous pronouncement. In fact, they asked the coroner to clarify whether Griñán's medical situation fit the requirements established in 80.4 of the Penal Code. And that is what the optional María Ángeles Dichas did in her letter of June 16, where she verified that the entry of the former leader of the Andalusian PSOE into the Seville I prison is “inadvisable”..
In the first report, he already positioned himself in this sense, but he admitted that the stage of the disease and the incipient nature of the treatment did not allow him to make a definitive opinion.. For this reason, the Prosecutor's Office proposed the suspension of the entry into prison until the former president finished the radiotherapy sessions. The treatment took place between February and March, for which reason the Public Ministry asked the coroner for a new evaluation, since the remaining treatment was “pharmacological”.. The second coroner's report defended that Griñán was still “very serious” and that the treatment had caused side effects that required “close monitoring”.. But he insisted on the uncertainty about the evolution of the disease and the effects that imprisonment could have on him..
The third clarification, from June 16, was already explicit. And that is why the Prosecutor's Office has also clarified its position in a brief letter signed this Wednesday. The Andalusian PP, as a private prosecution, must also pronounce shortly. But the final decision is in the hands of the First Section of the Seville Court, the court that sentenced the former Andalusian president and other senior socialist officials of the Board for their participation in the case of fraudulent EREs.. Griñán faces a sentence of six years in prison and special disqualification for the crimes of embezzlement and prevarication.
The Supreme Court confirmed last July the sentence of the Court of Seville and in the sentence, which was made public in September, it assumed the theses of the investigating judge, Mercedes Alaya. Griñán's conviction responds to his role as Minister of Finance in the governments of Manuel Chaves, since he was the one who provided the credit for the payment of fraudulent aid. What was judged in the procedure was the creation and use of an aid distribution formula devised within the Ministry of Employment and that allowed the irregular distribution of up to 680 million euros between 2000 and 2008.
Of the high officials convicted, only José Antonio Griñán remains out of jail. The rest of the former members of the Andalusian Government entered different prisons between the end of 2022 and the beginning of 2023. This is the case of the former Minister of Finance Carmen Martínez Aguayo, the former Minister of Employment José Antonio Viera and Antonio Fernández, the former Minister of Innovation Francisco Vallejo and former senior officials Miguel Ángel Serrano Aguilar, Jesús Rodríguez Román and Agustín Barberá. The latter, former Deputy Minister of Employment, also suffers from an illness, but the Court decided that he could continue treatment in prison. Also, keep in mind that Viera has recently received the third degree.