The resolution, accessed by elDiario.es, rejects the appeals filed by the defense of Francis Puig and businessman Joan Enric Adell Bover. These appeals were directed against the abbreviated procedure order issued by the investigating judge on January 28.
In line with the stance of the Anti-Corruption Prosecutor's Office, the Generalitat's Legal Department, and the PP (which acts as popular prosecution), the Third Section dismisses the argument that the appearance of a new alleged crime imputed to the investigated parties at the end of the instruction phase caused them defenselessness.
The defenses, for their part, considered that the facts attributed to the audiovisual entrepreneurs did not constitute any criminal offense and highlighted “the surprising nature” of the appearance of a new alleged crime of swindling, which was added to the initial alleged crime of subsidy fraud. Thus, they criticized a “substantial change in the procedural object” that caused them “evident defenselessness” as the investigated parties had not been questioned during the instruction phase about the crime of swindling, preventing them from proposing relevant proceedings.
The Instructor has included in the appealed order the facts subject to imputation and, without prejudice to the legal classification made in said order — which is not binding for the accusations — having been modified from what was initially maintained, it has in no way caused defenselessness to the appellants, as can be seen in the proceedings, no new punishable facts have been introduced, nor has the object of the process been modified.
The Valencia Court's order maintains that the legal classification by the instructor “does not bind the accusations in any way.” Furthermore, it concludes that the defenses were able to propose and carry out proceedings during the instruction phase in relation to the “specific imputed facts.” The resolution also highlights the “legal proximity” between the crimes of swindling and subsidy fraud, which “is necessarily framed within the proximity of the factual basis.”
Anti-Corruption estimates the subsidies obtained and allegedly defrauded by companies managed by Francis Puig from the Valencian and Catalan administrations at 110,691.97 euros. However, the Generalitat de Catalunya saw “no prejudice” to its interests in the subsidies granted to Ximo Puig's brother.
