There are few things stranger than the convergence of two corruption plots, one European and of global repercussion, and the other national, practically local and anecdotal. However, that is what has happened with the investigation of Qatargate – where a bribery scheme from Qatar and Morocco to gain influence in the institutions of the European Union is being investigated – and the network linked to the expelled judge Fernando Presencia, who is accused of being involved in corrupt activities without any evidence and with completely invented data involving ministers, Supreme Court judges, and all kinds of personalities.
The Euro MP and former Vice President of the European Parliament, Eva Kaili, has just filed a complaint with the Barcelona Prosecutor’s Office against two of Presencia’s colleagues in the association he presides over, the Association against Corruption and in Defense of Public Action (Acodap), which was set up, according to the National Court, to raise funds to fight against irregular practices, but was actually built on lies, fake documents, and a lot of imagination. She claims that they sent false documents to the European Prosecutor’s Office, accusing her of receiving transfers from the Qatari government through a Panamanian company.
The former leader of the far-right National Brotherhood of Franco’s Guard, Alberto Royuela, and Juan Martínez Grasa filed the complaint. They addressed the Attorney General of the European Public Persecutors Office, based in Luxembourg, seeking protection and confidentiality regarding the terms of their complaint, and claimed that through their YouTube channel, Expediente Royuela, which they maintain to allegedly expose hidden matters (in reality, the bulk of the content tends towards conspiracy theories and fabrication), they had anonymously received relevant information about Kaili’s shady practices. The platform spreads conspiracy theories that point to a network of corrupt politicians, judges, and prosecutors who have committed and concealed thousands of crimes in Spain. In the case of the Greek politician, they overflowed national borders and made the jump to the EU.
Specifically, they claimed to have learned that the former Vice President was about to receive transfers from the Qatari government through those Panamanian shell companies. They sent a certified letter to the Attorney General from Barcelona on December 16, 2022, stating that the Qatari authority had issued the orders for these million-dollar amounts and that these companies would subsequently transfer the funds “to their true recipients, which would be none other than the implicated officials and their families.” They attached supposed bank data to give greater credibility to their complaint.
The matter might not have gone beyond a mere anecdote if it had happened in Spain. Royuela and Judge Presencia joined forces through the Acodap association, which has filed dozens of similar lawsuits in Spanish courts. They have gone after former President Zapatero, ministers like Robles and Belarra, and magistrates like Cándido Conde-Pumpido or Pablo Llarena. They have also targeted renowned journalists and police chiefs. The website is dedicated to fundraising from the homepage, urging donations. “We need donations. Help us support Judge Presencia, a brave judge who achieved debt-for-equity swaps for those facing eviction. He defeated the banks, and they didn’t forgive him. Now they are going after him and his family,” the website says. Spanish courts are already familiar with the practices of the association, which is under the spotlight of the National Court, but the same cannot be said for Luxembourg, where the complaint had an immediate effect.
According to Kaili’s statement, the data they provided to the European prosecutor is not only false, “but does not correspond to any reality,” and it was provided to try to create “an appearance of reality that induces deception” to the fiscal authorities of the European Union and the Belgian court investigating her. In short, the complaint (in this case, presumably false) complicated her legal future. Extended stay in prison The former Vice President, represented by lawyer Gonzalo Boye, considers it a defamatory act. This action sought to generate confusion among fiscal and judicial authorities by “leading them to believe in something that does not exist” and deceive third parties to finance their activities. The complaint triggered a series of investigations that resulted in her prolonged stay in pretrial detention much longer than the other individuals under investigation in her case. Outside of Spain, Expediente Royuela’s authors’ practices were not known.
This Wednesday, Judge Joaquín Gadea of the National Court ordered the arrest of Presencia. He had summoned him on Wednesday to assess his provisional detention, but after failing to appear, he was arrested hours later. Gadea also ordered the temporary detention of Royuela, his son Santiago, and Martínez Grasa.
Kaili, from Greece, is one of those implicated in the bribery scandal known as Qatargate, in which the Gulf country and Morocco paid a network of MEPs and assistants to help improve the image of both countries. She was released under judicial supervision last April after spending nearly five months in preventive detention. Her lawyers considered that the Belgian justice system was being overly harsh since she was the only one among all the implicated individuals who was still in jail. Kaili is not considered the key figure in the investigation; that role is played by Pier-Antonio Panzeri, an old Italian socialist MEP who, after leaving the institution in 2019, focused on creating an NGO through which the payments were allegedly managed. Her former assistant, Francesco Giorgi, who is now Kaili’s partner and the father of her child, would have been the link that implicated her in the scheme.
