MADRID: Former International Monetary Fund chief Rodrigo Rato, who spent two years in prison on charges of embezzlement as chairman of Spanish lender Bankia, could face a long jail term in a corruption trial that began in Madrid on Friday.
Wearing a dark blue suit and seated in the front row of the courtroom, Rato, 74, nodded his head in agreement when asked by the judge, Angela Acevedo, if he was aware of the charges and potential jail time he could face.
Rato, who chaired the IMF from 2004-2007 and Bankia from 2010-2012, has denied wrongdoing.
A prosecutor has requested a sentence of 61-83 years for 11 charges against the tax authorities and other corruption and money laundering offences.
Rato's lawyer Maria Masso asked the court to dismiss the charges, arguing that Rato's rights had been violated during a 2015 search of his home, and evidence obtained through that inspection must be annulled.
"Consequently I hereby request the acquittal of Mr Rodrigo Rato Figaredo with a favourable ruling," Masso said.
The trial is expected to run until May 24, the Madrid court said, with the first hearings expected to be dominated by technicalities, such as which documents can be accepted. Rato is not expected to testify until April, but is attending proceedings.
Rato previously spent two years in prison under a 4-1/2-year jail term handed down in 2018 over the misuse of Bankia credit cards to buy jewels, holidays and expensive clothes.
A former deputy prime minister in Spain's conservative PP government between 1996 and 2004, he was acquitted in a separate fraud trial over the listing of Bankia in 2012.
The latest charges relate to kickbacks he is accused of receiving from Bankia advertising. He is accused of transferring illegal funds back to Spain, concealing 8.6 million euros from the tax authorities, according to the prosecutor.
He also faces charges for falsifying documents, using shell companies with bank accounts in the Bahamas, Switzerland, Luxembourg, Monaco and Britain, for investments which the prosecutor said were taxable between 2005 and 2015.
Analysis of documents showed an unjustified increase of more than 15.6 million euros in his wealth during this period, the prosecutor added. A former heavyweight in the right-wing Popular Party (PP), Rato spent eight years variously serving as economy minister and a deputy prime minister in the conservative government of Jose Maria Aznar before going on to lead the IMF in 2004. He later headed Spanish lender Bankia.
Rato was jailed in 2018 for four-and-a-half years for misusing company credit cards for personal expenses while working at Bankia between 2010 and 2012. He was moved to a semi-open prison regime in late 2020.
That decision came just after he was acquitted in another case of fraud and falsifying the books during the 2011 flotation of Bankia. The Bankia scandal came to light at the height of a severe economic crisis that left many people struggling financially.
It sparked outrage in Spain, which worsened when the government then spent 22 billion euros on a bailout for the failing lender that quickly won notoriety as a symbol of financial excess. - Reuters/AFP
Oman Observer is now on the WhatsApp channel. Click here
