José María Aznar , President of the Government between 1996 and 2004, and Mariano Rajoy , Chief Executive between 2011 and 2018, have had various differences in recent years. Despite both presiding over the PP for years, they have held conflicting opinions on several important issues.
However, today both have agreed again: they neither received bonuses when they were at the head of the party and the Government, nor did they know box b of the PP , nor did they deal with the economic affairs of the formation.
At least that is how the two have assured this Wednesday the judge of the National Court José Antonio de la Mora, which judges the case on the irregular accounting of the conservative formation and if the reform of the Madrid headquarters of the PP, located on Genova street, was paid with black money .
In the day of this Wednesday, the former president of the Government of Spain, José María Aznar, has declared as a witness in the trial of box b of the PP. These are some of the phrases that the former leader of the PP has said in his speech.
“You can ask 30 times and I will answer the same thing”: the eight most outstanding sentences of Aznar in the trial of the PP
The declaration of two of the last presidents of the Government was the highlight of this cause, which has been under investigation for years. Yesterday it was the turn of those responsible for the former leadership of the PP .
Declared Francisco Álvarez Cascos , secretary general of training between 1989 and 1999; Javier Arenas , Cascos counterpart between 1999 and 2003; and María Dolores de Cospedal , who held the highest organic responsibility between 2008 and 2018. Like them, Aznar and Rajoy denied everything. Until the existence of a box b, despite the fact that the judicial ruling of the Gürtel plot proved its possible existence.
The first to testify was Aznar , who, wearing a mask, did not hide his discomfort at having been called to the cause for the private accusations, whom he accused of being politicized for representing PSOE deputies or even Carlos Puigdemont. ” I have not received any salary supplement , I have never received any bonus,” he said defiantly.
The former president has already declared about box b in the investigation commission that took place in the Congress of Deputies and today he wanted to ratify himself: “I thank you for reading my intervention in Congress, I have nothing to correct. You can ask me the same thing 30 times because the answer will be the same ; I did not know those papers, nor do I have any grounds for their justification ”.
Likewise, he has insisted on several occasions that the only accounting of the PP that he has known in his years at the head of the formation, of which he has said he feels “proud”, as well as of his former ministers , “is the official one, the one that it is referred to the Court of Auditors “. In this sense, Rajoy has also denied that accounting b. “It is absolutely false,” he has repeated on several occasions.
The unexpected question to Aznar: “Why is he wearing the mask if he is alone?”
Of course, while Aznar has been tough against the private accusations, Rajoy has done it against Luis Bárcenas, the former treasurer of the PP. In addition to denying that they had a good relationship (despite the messages from ” Luis, be strong ” that he sent him when El País published Bárcenas’ papers), he has called his words “delusional”.
And it is that, Rajoy has been the target of all the accusations of Bárcenas since he decided to collaborate with Justice. In recent weeks, he has been identified as the plotter of the Kitchen operation , an alleged parapolice plot that was set up with funds reserved from the Ministry of the Interior to spy on the former treasurer and steal sensitive information ”; and also as the person responsible for destroying what he calls “the PP papers . ”
Rajoy has clarified that it is “metaphysically impossible” for him to destroy them because, he said, he met them in 2013, when the newspaper El País published them for the first time . In these years he has come to say that “everything is false, except for something”, a statement about which he has been asked.
And it is that, there are ex-deputies like Jaime del Burgo or Pío García Escudero who have recognized the accounting entries referring to them. “I am not going to dispute the statements of people who say they are true, but there are 95% of people who have said they are false,” he added.
Likewise, they have also asked him about the confession letter that Luis Bárcenas delivered to the Anticorruption Prosecutor’s Office, in which he affirmed that he gave 50,000 euros from box b to Rajoy himself and to the former general secretary of the PP, María Dolores de Cospedal. ” It is absolutely false, ” he insisted.
